To the Editor:

The news states that this pandemic doesn’t affect the young and healthy yet I’m here to say that it does.

My son is a senior at Berne-Knox-Westerlo. He is an amazing person who carried an 85 class average through his entire high school career even with having an Individualized Education Program and being a three-sport kid, not to mention being a Boy Scout for several years.

He excels at every sport he plays. He was the goalie of the year for the past two years in the Western Athletic Conference. He is an excellent wrestler. He went to states this past year and placed either ninth or 10th in the state for small schools. He also received “Wrestler of the Year” for the Western Athletic Conference. He also enjoyed playing baseball and even one year of track and baseball.

Like I stated earlier, my son is a good student also. Every teacher is so proud of the hard work that he does in every one of his classes. Nobody works as hard as he does in everything he does. He will be graduating with a Regents diploma. He even has three college credits for the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill in English Language Arts.

He is the 18-year-old who holds the door open for you at the store. The one that runs after something someone drops in a parking lot and the wind is blowing away. The one that says please and thank-you and never complains about having to work — OK, maybe a little complaining about the work part, lol. I couldn’t be prouder of the way he has turned out!

So you are probably asking: So what is the issue? He sounds like a great kid with a promising career, and how does this pertain to the pandemic?

Part of his Individualized Education Program is that he has an issue with comprehension and testing. If you saw how many times he had to take the practice tests just to pass all the Regents you would understand how hard he works!

So he took the SATs twice and scored lower than he wanted so I told him not to worry, just keep on doing your best in the classroom and on the field of whatever you are playing because you have time to work on the SATs. So that is my fault!

Who would’ve thought we would be here! Now we can’t work on the SATs; because of the pandemic, they are not even giving the test. I think it is a shame that, because of a single test on a single day, he is not worthy to go to the college of his choice. Especially since he is not able to retake the test like all the kids in years’ past were able to do due to this pandemic.

He would have had two more chances to get his score up to where it needs to be to enter college. Now I’m not talking about going to a big NCAA college. I’m talking about a small SUNY college like Oneonta. The school has turned him down.

He wanted to go there because it is one of the best schools in the country for his major and he can continue his wrestling career without going into extreme debt. The coach at Oneonta was looking forward to having him but couldn’t help him get in.

As if not having a senior year with his friends, no prom, and looking like not having a traditional graduation wasn’t bad enough, we now have to deal with not being able to get into the SUNY college of his choice. Now he feels like a failure and, no matter how many times I tell him it’s not your fault, it’s really mine, because I told him not to worry; we have time to take this ridiculous test again later!

There goes the Father of the Year Award! It is an absolute shame that this just proves no matter how hard you work and succeed, it is just not enough during a pandemic. That is a hard lesson to learn at 18 years old.

So this answers the question: How does this pandemic affect the young and healthy? It kills their dreams!

Kevin Goodemote

Berne