Some schools reverse learning plans as COVID-19 cases rise
Ohio’s record-breaking COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks are causing school leaders across the state to reconsider bringing students back into classrooms more often.
Locally, the Dublin school district backtracked Friday on its plans to return all students in grades K-8 to classrooms full-time starting Nov. 2.
Just a week and a half after announcing that in-person learning would resume five days a week, Dublin school officials sent a letter to families Friday stating that students will instead be hybrid learning for the rest of this semester, which ends on Dec. 18. Students are then on winter break until Jan. 5, 2021. The district cited local COVID-19 data for the change.
Leaders of the Olentangy school district announced at a school board meeting Thursday night that they’ll also remain in a hybrid learning format for the remainder of this semester, which ends on Jan. 14. Students are in two groups, attending classes twice a week and on alternating Wednesdays.
In Dublin, students also are currently divided into two groups, with high school students attending in-person classes two full days a week and students in grades K-8 attending every weekday for a half-day of classes, either in the morning or the afternoon.
Dublin Superintendent Todd Hoadley said the district decided to wait until at least January to discuss switching learning modes again, so families wouldn’t have to worry about impending changes during the holidays.
“It’s our continual goal to allow our kids to come back safely in our schools,” he said.
Within the past two weeks, at least 16 of the state’s more than 600 districts had scaled back on in-person school due to COVID-19, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said during briefing on COVID-19 last Tuesday.
These days, school leaders are operating in a “week-by-week” landscape, said Richard Lewis, the executive director of the Ohio School Boards Association.
State officials have left decisions on reopening mostly up to local districts, only issuing a mandate that employees and students wear masks while at school.
All other criteria are just recommendations and guidelines, which Lewis said is a good fit, rather than a “onesize-fits-all” approach.
“There is so much disparity between what different schools are able to do, and also what parents will support or tolerate,” Lewis said.
Columbus City Schools, the state’s largest school district with about 50,000 enrolled students, announced last Tuesday that its students won’t be returning to buildings at all this semester, which ends Jan. 15, 2021. Instead, they’ll continue learning online from home.
Before that decision, most Columbus students were scheduled to begin inperson classes twice a week by early November.
Gahanna-jefferson students will resume some classes in-person starting Monday after a four-day strike earlier this month led to a new, one-year contract. Nine of the new agreement’s 12 pages are related to accommodations for teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Friday, Ohio hit another singleday record high for COVID-19 cases with more than 2,500 new cases. It marked the eighth time in nine days that new daily cases have topped 2,000.
On Oct. 15, the coronavirus advisory level in Franklin County was elevated from a Level 2, or “orange,” to a Level 3, or “red,” according to the state’s fourtiered system.
Ohio’s hospitals are now caring for more COVID-19 patients than at any time since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Despite those trends, some central Ohio school officials say they won’t scale back on classroom time – at least not yet.
The New Albany school district has had students learning in person daily since Oct. 5. On Friday, it announced that New Albany High School students would move to a hybrid attendance model this week.
District spokesman Patrick Gallaway said parent opinions on the issue are a “mixed bag.”
The Pickerington school district plans to move forward with returning students to buildings four days a week starting Nov. 16, spokeswoman Crystal Davis said.
The district’s teachers union released a statement shortly after that Oct. 13 announcement stating its members are “deeply concerned about whether the district’s policies can keep students, educators and the wider community safe from the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Ohio Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, issued a statement Wednesday urging any school district located in a “red” county like Franklin County to switch to remote learning. As of Friday, that was a record 38 of Ohio’s 88 counties. Currently 74% of all Ohioans are living in a county under that designation.
Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Joe Mazzola said local health officials continue to meet with school leaders every week to discuss case trends and offer advice.
In an Oct. 15 letter, the county health department didn’t recommend a specific learning format for all schools in its jurisdiction, but it did recommend school officials be cautious when considering a transition to full in-person learning. Previously, the department recommended only hybrid learning in August.
Before transitioning, the recent letter suggested a “per-capita case count” of less than 50 cases per 100,000 residents over a two-week period. It also warned that if students can’t consistently maintain 6 feet of distance, more of them will likely need to quarantine if somebody in a school contracts COVID-19, because they would be considered to be within “close contact” of an infected person.
Thisweek News reporters Sarah Sole and Jim Fischer contributed to this story.