Schools back in person, with COVID challenges
NEWARK — After a year dealing with the pandemic, the 2020-21 school year ended on a relatively high note, all things considered.
So Licking County schools were even more encouraged when things resumed this fall for 2021-22. Even though COVID has again reared its ugly head, they seem better equipped to roll with the changes into the new year.
For 2020-21, most Licking County schools were eventually able to go back in-person, albeit with a strict set of guidelines from the Licking County Health Department. They got through the fall and winter sports seasons, complete with quarantines and restrictions, and got to enjoy spring sports, proms and graduations.
“Graduations and proms won’t be 100 percent normal, but it will be good to see some of the things students missed out on,” Newark superintendent David Lewis said in the spring of 2021. “It was the biggest heartbreak, because our students and families have lost a lot.”
“As staff and community members continue to receive vaccinations, I believe we will continue to see a decline in active cases,” Southwest Licking superintendent Kasey Perkins said at the time. “With the newly released guidelines, we will be able to offer our seniors many of the spring activities they deserve to participate in.”
Licking Valley ended the remote learning option after spring break, and went back to normal starting April 5. “That’s really important, because that lost hour every day adds up to a lot of weeks of lost instruction over the course of the school year,” superintendent Dave Hile said in March.
Licking Heights went to a 4:1 model on March 22, with students in person four days a week with virtual days rotating among different buildings. Superintendent Dr. Philip Wagner noted that 70 percent of school staff had been vaccinated back then.
Return to normalcy?
Entering the 2021-22 school year in August, local superintendents were optimistic about things getting back to the way they were pre-pandemic.
“Coming into the school year, we had the expectation of returning to normal. We thought we were getting to the end and weren’t going to have to deal with COVID,” Lewis acknowledged.
“Coming into the 21-22 school year, the entire organization had different expectations related to COVID,” Granville superintendent Jeff Brown said. “Numbers were low during the summer months and we felt that things were trending in a positive direction.”
But COVID re-entered the picture.
Hile said the the difficult thing was simply not knowing what was going to happen once school opened due to the presence of the delta variant. “But we didn’t have long to wait to find out because we had an outbreak at the high school within the first two weeks of opening and had to shut down the school for two weeks to extinguish the outbreak,” he said. “Since then, things have been fairly normal. We’ve started to see an uptick in cases the last few weeks, but nothing like we did at the beginning of the year.”
“We had a significant increase in numbers and had to pivot back to a mask mandate for a period of time,” Brown said. “The true challenge was going through the new guidance and complying with the contact tracing process. As schools, we had grown accustom to this process, but it was more nuanced this year.”
In September, Newark had more cases than it expected, and also had high numbers of students quarantined. “Thankfully, through working with the Health Department and making some slight procedure adjustments, we have seen fewer students quarantined since the early part of the year,” Lewis said.
“The transition this year was challenging in the beginning with the contact tracing protocol from the health department and the removal of our mask mandate,” Perkins said of Southwest Licking. “Teachers had to work with two platforms, trying to support in-person learning while making sure students who were quarantined were not falling behind. Last year, our district had a mask requirement, so most students did not have to quarantine outside of the lunch hour. This year, we removed the mask mandate which caused additional students to quarantine.”
Perkins noted that once the protocols changed from the health department allowing students to come to school while quarantining with masks and negative tests, the amount of students staying at home was significantly reduced. “This has been a relief to our teachers, who were trying to effectively teach students both in-person and from home and most definitely our largest challenge this year,” she said. “Otherwise, things have been going fairly smoothly and many of the daily routines have returned to normal.”
Heath schools improve
Heath superintendent Trevor Thomas said the district has had an outstanding year to date, which followed a very successful 2020-21 school year.
“Our student learning is on pace for improvement this year, when compared to 2018-19 student results,” he said. “We have all of our students in person currently, and have been able to stay in school all year, and our students are enjoying a more normal year this year in all their activities.”
However, the unexpected COVID surges this fall, and currently, are presenting challenges.
“We were very lucky leading up to break that our numbers remained very low between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Thomas said. “The county saw an increase in case counts following Thanksgiving, and those have decreased slightly in the last week. We have been challenged with staffing, specifically in an insufficient number of substitute teachers and bus drivers.”
Heath has met that challenge by increasing substitute teacher pay 20 percent, and they had already increased substitute bus driver compensation on two previous occasions.
“It’s also a challenge in operating under more normal conditions (normal capacity at events, as well as optional mask rules), because virus prevention behaviors is more a personal choice,” Thomas added. “However, the data indicates that school is still a safe place for students. Students are spaced in school more than they are outside of school, and have a very structured routine. We also believe that being able to provide normal experiences for students and adults has true mental health benefits.”
“Now we are really seeing the impact COVID is having on students socially, behaviorally and academically,” Lewis said of Newark. “This year’s second grade students have never had a full, uninterrupted year of school. All students are impacted by time lost in-class.”
Dr. Wagner said Heights continues to explore and offer wellness programming and assistance for staff and students who have been unduly stressed by the COVID-driven operational impediments.. This has also been another difficult year, with unprecedented challenges in hiring for positions at all levels within the district.
“In response, we have worked closely with our team to enhance compensation and wellness needs among staff,” Wagner said. “As seen in October, to solidify our transportation services, the Board of Education and staff united behind a compensation plan to mitigate bus driver shortages experienced by school districts across the country.”
Exhausting work
Johnstown superintendent Dale Dickson said his district has kept its focus on educating the students, despite the division in society over COVID, and it has been exhausting work for teachers, administrators and staff.
“It is not unlike many other businesses and professions that are experiencing a revolving door of absences due to illness, challenges hiring employees, and addressing an elevated number of behavior issues,” Dickson said. “Much of the atypical behavior we are seeing in students and adults seems to stem from the unrest and pressures witnessed in our greater society. People are tired. People are wanting to get back to a ‘normal’ way of life and better economy that we had prior to this pandemic.”
“What’s been most difficult for school leaders about the pandemic, is that it has forced us to be reactive rather than proactive, and no leader of anything wants to be reactive,” Hile said. “Additionally, communities are split over how they want leaders to respond to the pandemic. Some want all possible precautions taken and others want us to pretend it is nothing more than the flu.
“I decided, along with all of my Licking County superintendent colleagues, to simply follow Ohio law and our board policies which require us to cooperate with the health department to mitigate communicable diseases,” Hile added. “People may not like it, but superintendents and school board members are obligated to follow the law.”
As the calendar turns to 2022, county leaders are still optimistic about what is ahead. although the Omicron variant looms over the holiday break.
“We are pleased that despite such challenges, we have been able to maintain in-person classes and we look forward to the second semester,” Wagner said. “Our students conclude 2021 having experienced a stronger sense of ‘normalcy.'”
“Overall, we are excited that we…