HILTON, N.Y. — The pandemic has uprooted the lives of hundreds of thousands of students and parents who, almost overnight, had to find a way to learn and teach from home.

Now, Hilton High School's principal is talking about what an unprecedented year this has been.

Monroe County Executive Adam Bello announced on March 14, 2020, that all schools would have to close. And what came next was a year of trying to figure out how to keep teachers, staff, students, and families safe.

"I can vividly recall having conversations with students saying, 'are we going to be coming back to school on Monday?' And never having comprehended something like that in the past, it was just such a time of unknown," said Dr. Jeffrey Green, principal at Hilton High School.

Dr. Green says no one was quite sure what to do, but safety and making sure students continued their education were the main goals. Schools went from completely remote in spring 2020 to a hybrid model in the fall with some days remote and some days in-person.

Sports came to a full halt last spring, but now students are back on courts and the field for a short season.

As the end of the school year is nearing, and COVID-19 numbers get better, Green says the goal is to get students back five days a week as soon as possible.

"I would prefer to be back five days and learning and trying to get back to a sense of normal, but being in a hybrid format is certainly better, in my opinion, than being fully remote. But we are making the fully remote students that chose to do that work just as well. It just takes a lot of time and effort and collaboration with teachers," Dr. Green said.

Principal Green says he's also focusing on making sure seniors have as much of the typical fun activities and celebrations they can before graduating.

Green announced over the weekend that graduation will happen at Frontier Field on June 23, which gives students and their families space to social distance on the special day.