City schools set more return dates
Columbus students in grades 6-12 start in March
After almost a year of learning online, Columbus City Schools students in middle and high school will soon be heading back into classrooms.
Students in grades 6, 11 and 12, divided in two groups, will return on March 15 and March 18, according to a Thursday announcement from the district.
Meanwhile, students in grades 7, 8, 9 and 10 will return on March 22 and March 25.
As part of the plan, all high school students will receive free Central Ohio Transit Authority bus passes to alleviate transportation concerns. These won’t replace yellow-bus transportation, but supplement it, Columbus City
Schools Superintendent Talisa Dixon said in Thursday’s update.
The district is using federal grants to buy the passes, in partnership with COTA, Dixon said.
The purchase will cost $216,000. It goes before the Columbus Board of Education for approval on Tuesday.
“Every day counts for our students, and getting them back in our classrooms is important for their academic and social-emotional development,” Dixon said in Thursday’s update. “This is especially important for our seniors, who are working towards graduation in the coming months.”
When next month’s transition is complete, all of the nearly 47,000 students who attend Columbus City Schools will be offered in-person classes two days a week, in an arrangement the district is calling “blended learning.”
The other three days will still be spent learning online from home. Students in each grade are divided into two groups, “cohort A” and “cohort B,” to reduce the number of students in schools and reduce the likelihood of spreading COVID-19.
Until this month, all Columbus classes had been online since March 16, 2020, after Gov. Mike Dewine ordered all school buildings to close because of the emerging coronavirus pandemic.
On Feb. 1, Columbus students first began transitioning back into buildings. Currently about half of the district’s students, about 24,000, have returned. Those groups are preschool and grades K-5; select students in all grade levels with “complex needs,” such as disabilities; and high school students in career-technical education programs at Columbus Downtown High School and the Fort Hayes Career Center.
The fact that, until now, the district hadn’t yet announced a plan to return students in grades 6-12 to buildings had recently drawn public criticism from Dewine.
Ohio is in the process of administering COVID-19 vaccines to more than 300,000 teachers and other school employees, ahead of the schedule recommended by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. But in order to receive the vaccines for their employees, Dewine required schools to sign a document agreeing to offer in-person learning experiences by March 1.
By failing to meet that deadline, Columbus and other districts were breaking their agreements, Dewine said.
In response, Columbus officials said they were facing challenges with transportation and staffing shortages, but had always intended to bring the remainder of students back as soon as possible.
In Ohio, state law requires public school districts to provide transportation to all students living in their boundaries, even if they attend charter or private schools. During the 2019-20 school year, Columbus transported more than 42,000 students daily. About a third, or 13,000, weren’t enrolled in the district.
The district’s team of bus drivers has dropped by 22% in the past year – from 765 drivers on about 700 routes in March 2020 to just 596 drivers on 531 routes, as of earlier this month.
Dixon’s Thursday update said the district addressed the challenges by “surveying families and collectively engaging partners to increase capacity, efficiency and additional transportation options.”
“I cannot thank our teachers, principals, staff, and district community enough for their ongoing efforts and support of our students,” Dixon said.
More details about the COTA partnership will be coming in the next week, she said. Families who don’t want their students to return to buildings can enroll them in the district’s self-paced, fully online Columbus Digital Academy. Students in grades 6-12 currently enrolled in the academy can withdraw and return to their home school. Changes can be made through March 11.
Columbus isn’t the only Ohio district announcing back-to-school updates this week.
On Monday, the Akron school district, which Dewine also had called out, announced it would move up its dates to restart fully in-person classes by one week. Students with significant disabilities will return March 8, while all other students will return March 15.
Also after Dewine’s comments, the Cleveland district recently announced that all of its students will return for hybrid learning by March 22.
On Thursday, Dewine seemed satisfied with districts making adjustments, even if they are still missing the March 1 deadline.
“I’m happy where we are,” Dewine said, when asked about possible penalties for schools.
He reiterated that the state will not be taking second doses of vaccines away from educators who already received their first dose this month, which he once threatened.
“We’ve come a long way,” Dewine said.
USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau reporter Anna Staver contributed to this story. awidmanneese@dispatch.com @Alissawidman