YUHSD to return to all-virtual learning
schools will transition on monday due to yuma County’s CovId-19 trends
On Monday, Yuma Union High School District will suspend hybrid learning and transition to a virtual-only learning format due to the county’s COVID-19 trends.
In a special meeting Wednesday evening, the governing board voted to revert the district to offsite learning and reevaluate public health data in December and January to determine “if and when” it may be safe to resume an in-person learning model. During the board’s Oct. 29 study session, YUHSD Superintendent Gina Thompson indicated the district was at risk of such a transition if the county’s daily COVID-19 case counts didn’t decline.
On Wednesday, the Yuma County Public Health Services District reported 146 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total confirmed to 15,785.
Additionally, Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) school dashboard data released Nov. 12 reported Yuma County as having a rate of 196 positive cases per 100,000 individuals and a percent positivity of 15.5% for the week of Oct. 25. To remain in a hybrid format, ADHS recommends a county’s positive cases per 100,000 individuals fall between 10 and 100, with a percent positivity of 10% or lower.
“I was really hopeful back in September – we had some really great weeks where our COVID metrics were in the green
(indicating minimal transmission) and looked like we were going to be able to go (back to) five days of being open,” Thompson said. “Since that time, unfortunately – and I’m going to be very blunt – due to inappropriate behaviors throughout the county, COVID spread has become a huge spike.”
Thompson went on to implore the community to band together for a common cause, wear a face mask and practice social distancing “instead of arguing.” By not doing these things, she said, community members are putting themselves and their children at risk.
“It’s really disappointing to me as a superintendent, as a parent, that we continue to have to ask for the most simple of behaviors,” said Thompson. “Let me be clear, this is an adult problem. Our students wear their masks when they are on our sites. No, we are not perfect, but we are begging for community support. Nobody wants to keep students out of school. The students want to come back to school. Students are not the problem. I don’t know what else I can do as a superintendent, other than beg...for people to help us get our kids back in school five days a week.”
According to Thompson, the district’s goal upon beginning hybrid learning Sept. 14 was to eventually bring all 11,000-plus students back to campuses for traditional, in-person learning five days a week, but the perceived lack of community cooperation in mask-wearing and social distancing stunted the district’s progress.
“That has been our goal since day one and I truly believed we were close – in September and early October, we were right there,” Thompson said. “Adults prevented that from happening. Even if you do not have children in our schools, can you please wear your mask, wash your hands and social distance and help us get our kids back in school?”
According to Associate Superintendent Tim Brienza, between Sept. 14 and Nov. 13 when administration made an assessment, 441 students had been sent home to self-isolate following a COVID-19 exposure or a confirmed case.
“They were exposed outside of school, or they were exposed by a student who maybe tested positive, the parents reported it to the school and we had to contact trace,” Brienza said.
The district is also experiencing serious staffing issues, according to Brienza. Since Monday, 25 district employees had been exposed to COVID-19; six have tested positive.
Of the district’s 85 approved substitutes, 53 are currently being utilized to fill in for teachers who have been exposed or tested positive for COVID-19, or to fill long-term substitute positions the district was unable to fill at the beginning of the school year.
“We are facing a huge staffing shortage, which is obviously affecting the learning of our students,” Brienza said.
According to YUHSD chief communications officer Eric Patten, beginning Monday, drive-thru nutrition services will be provided on all six district campuses from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. each weekday. All children age 18 and younger will receive breakfast and lunch items at no cost.
Sports and extracurricular activities will be put on hold.
In the virtual learning format, Patten said that students will attend six class periods on-camera each day, as opposed to the block schedule students followed in August and early September when the school year began remotely.
According to Brienza, this schedule will match the current hybrid learning schedule.
“They’ll be with all their classmates and their teachers (virtually) five days a week for 45 minutes each period,” he said. “We have 17 days of instruction left, and we have great confidence in our students and our staff that with this schedule and the content that students are learning, they’ll master the concepts and be very successful.”
For Cibola, Gila Ridge, Kofa and Yuma High Schools, the on-camera school day will be from 7:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., after which they will work on their assignments independently; at San Luis, students will learn on-camera from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Vista High School students will learn on-camera from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., while the school’s Strategies for Success cohort will learn on-camera from 8:20 a.m. to 12:33 p.m.
Patten noted that on-site support services will be provided for the duration of virtual learning in accordance with Gov. Doug Ducey’s executive order; additional information on how this will commence is forthcoming.
The district provides informational updates via its social media platforms, www.yumaunion.org and its mass communication system, which sends emails and text alerts directly to parents’ devices.
“I’m deeply disappointed that we’re at the point of having to make this decision,” said governing board president Phil Townsend. “We’re in the business of educating kids; everything else is periphery. I think we’re failing our kids – and by ‘we’ I don’t mean this school district, I mean this community – because we’re not following the rules and we’re not doing a better job of controlling this pandemic. It’s heart-wrenching for me, but I don’t see an alternative at this point.”