Emily Kemper | The Chronicle
Six years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted daily routines, students’ memories of online classes and toilet paper shortages have faded. But for some Mason City School CyberComets who spent the 2020–21 school year online, that distance inspired a multi‑year project to reflect on their experience.
On March 13, 2026, five Mason High School (MHS) seniors and Mason Middle School (MMS) assistant principal and athletic director Jen Mott published “CyberComet Reflections: One School’s Response To Online Learning”. The book discusses how students, staff and administration adapted to the COVID lockdown, and how it still affects the Mason community in 2026. The book is divided into three parts, including student and staff perspectives on different aspects of COVID from the 2020-21 online school year, 2024 and 2026.
Author Desika Shyam Sundar said she was eager to join the project, despite not knowing what the final product would be. Mott had sent a form to all CyberComets, asking if they would like to be involved in a project to reflect on their year of online school.
“It’s cool to be able to say I contributed to something that helps us remember the lockdown experience,” Shyam Sundar said. “That is [why] I wanted to be part of this. Then later we found out it was a book, [and] I’ve liked writing for a long time [and] wanted to publish a book someday.”
Authors of “CyberComet Reflections: One School’s Response to Online Learning” gather for an exclusive look at their newly published book
Mott introduced the idea of turning the project into a book, and the authors agreed it would be the best way to showcase everyone’s story. Shyam Sundar decided she wanted her contribution to be both reflective and thankful. She said she discovered her passion for neuroscience during the lockdown, while also balancing online school and difficult family circumstances.
“My dad was stuck in India, and my sister, my mom and I were here,” Shyam Sundar said. “I wanted [my writing] to be a tribute to my mom and how she kept me and my sister going, staying strong for the whole family. It was a progression of how I saw lockdown, from my family situation and how I dealt with it to how it contributed to who I am today.”
Fellow author Aashita Srivastava said that because of the business of senior year, planning time to work on the book was difficult, though the collaboration itself was easy. Srivastava said that keeping most of the writing, editing and publishing process within Mason made it easy to share ideas and stories.
“All of us did our own separate thing,” Srivastava said. “Then we all were able to get together, even if it was just for 20 minutes, to collaborate and [see] how we tie these all in together. All of us decided to make it a Mason thing. We have so many capable teachers and students, [so] we didn’t feel the need to take it to an outside source.”
Srivastava said she was fortunate not to have many difficulties during the lockdown, so she wanted to expand her writing to reflect how the world dealt with the shutdown. She said that at the last minute, she added in a lyric from Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” to capture the loneliness, but also the connection she saw during the pandemic.
“Music has been such a steady thing in my life,” Srivastava said. “I was so grateful to have that to turn to, even when everything was going wrong. I wanted to connect [music to my writing because] it wasn’t just personal. Around the world, music was a steady thing.”
For author Sophina Li, she said writing the book changed her outlook on life and allowed her to practice gratitude. She said that after COVID, not many people actually took time to acknowledge that they had lived through a global pandemic and reflect.
“It really gave me an opportunity to think about how Covid changed me,” Li said. “[Before] I was trying to aim for productivity and getting [things] done. I realized that you can literally lose anything in your life at any point, so being able to appreciate a sunset or going to the mall with friends is really important. There are a lot of small things in life that make it so beautiful.”
(Left to Right) Jen Mott, Sophina Li, Aashita Srivastava, Swikruti Dash, Simone Kaur, and Desika Shyam Sundar are now published authors of “CyberComet Reflections: One School’s Response to Online Learning” after a year of writing and collaboration on the project.
On March 14, the CyberComets started selling copies of the book, followed by an official launch celebration and book signing on March 15. Author Simone Kaur said the response was very positive, and it felt great to see others enjoy her work.
“I didn’t realize how many people would be excited for this,” Kaur said. “There were way more people than I thought would be excited to purchase and read this book. Just seeing that we actually finished it was definitely rewarding.”
Author Swikruti Dash said that while she never thought that she would become a published author before graduation, Mott’s motivation pushed her and her co-authors to see the project through. She also said that the process itself was easier than she expected.
“Just get out there,” Dash said. “If you have an idea, if you have something you want to do, the best thing you can do is just get out there. Get people involved, share the story [and] work together since you have a common goal.”
Shyam Sundar said that after reflecting on the past, she wanted to take what she had learned from the lockdown and this project to grow her mindset in the future.
“We want to see results immediately for anything we do,” Shyam Sundar said. “At the beginning, we had lost hope because we hadn’t met for a long time and it felt like nothing was getting done, so we had to keep reminding ourselves that there will be a goal, it just won’t be right this second. That mindset is what I’ll take away from this project.”
