Dear fellow students,

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that school feels almost like an afterthought now. It started with COVID-19, and then quarantine hit. If that wasn't the end of it, now we're fearing for our own safety as we rally up to fight for racial justice. In the middle of all this, we are expected to keep school in mind and diligently pound through our academics as we have in the past. But to expect such a thing out of us right now is disconcerting for the very reason that it isn't like the past anymore.

I have a few friends struggling as we speak - they're international students who are separated from their families for the time being, as there is no way to go back home. I know students that are evacuating their buildings because of violent riots,  spread of tear gas, and surveillance of the national guard. With this little information, it is clear that they have more important priorities to worry about other than school. While an education remains very important to all of us, the current circumstances are causing some of us to choose between our lives and getting an A on an assignment, and we cannot blame students for putting their lives before a grade. Regardless, they feel the need to carry out their studies.

It doesn't take much to infer from this that maybe school, as of this moment, is indeed an afterthought. School seems to be holding my friends and I back from dealing with the problems that need to be dealt with. School seems to be a nuisance in the middle of other pressing concerns.

I implore you now, as a fellow SMC student, to sign this petition to cancel our finals. In the same way, we as students are expected to stay put and push through our exams, we expect schools to accommodate us in this time of ever-increasing crises.

I hope you all are staying safe. We'll make it out together.