COVID in Columbus schools: 6 buildings return to in-person

Columbus City Schools Board of Education members addressed school closures caused by staff absences since classes resumed after winter break at their meeting Tuesday.

Superintendent Talisa Dixon said the district “will continue to face these issues for the foreseeable future” due to the rise of the omicron variant.

She added that not only has COVID-19 caused teachers to call in sick, but so has the flu and seasonal sickness, resulting in the closures. The district has also placed central office staff in schools to support buildings that are in-person.

“We will continue to provide this additional support,” Dixon said. “But we know that this model is not sustainable if we continue to see the increasing number of teacher and staff in our school buildings.”

Dixon said that the district has provided more than 40,000 KN90 and KN95 masks for district staff members.

Columbus Public Health Commissioner Dr. Mysheika Roberts said the department is encouraging schools to remain open.

“So with masking — universal masking — with vaccinations and with cleaning and some type of social distancing to reduce interactions as well as contact tracing, I feel like our kids are at their safest place when they are at school,” Roberts said via Zoom videoconferencing. “That's where they belong.”

In response to a question by board member Tina Pierce, Dixon said the threshold for determining whether a school is closed is being determined building-to-building, and has largely been based on staff availability.

“School ‘A' may have 200 students with 15 staff members, school ‘B' may have a school with 300 with 10 staff, so it just depends on the staffing, which is our largest determinant,” Dixon said.

On Wednesday, six Columbus City Schools buildings returned to classes in-person:

● Berwick Alternative Prek-8

● Johnson Park Middle School

● Ridgeview Middle School

● West Mound Elementary School

● Whetstone High School

● Yorktown Middle School Eight schools continued to be or transitioned to remote learning due to staff shortages. The schools include:

● Eastmoor Academy

● Fairmoor Elementary School

● Independence High School

● Linden-mckinley STEM Academy

● Sherwood Middle School

● Woodward Park Middle School and sixth grade at Walden

● South High School

● Windsor STEM Academy Valley Forge Elementary School continued to be remote due to a partial heating outage, which had kept students and teachers out since Monday.

The district added that all practices and games for middle school athletics at remote schools were canceled, while all high school athletics continued.

Other Columbus-area districts also have some schools doing remote learning. Westerville Central High School and Genoa Middle School pivoted to remote learning Wednesday.

In Reynoldsburg City Schools, students at both high school campuses and the preschools learning remotely this week due to “staffing and bus driver shortages,” according to the district.

Dispatch education reporter Megan Henry contributed to this story. mylee@dispatch.com @leem386