EDUCATION

Quarantines challenge Licking County schools again on remote education

Dave Weidig
Newark Advocate

NEWARK —  When it comes to dealing with COVID-19 quarantine in the classroom, Suzi Huffman has pretty much seen it all.

Huffman, a second grade teacher at Hillview Elementary School for Newark City Schools, was in her classroom last week teaching on Zoom, while her students were home in quarantine. She has also taught from home, and taught with students in class while also connecting with those who are home in quarantine.

"I post every day in Google Classroom, and there are links to assignments and virtual notebooks," she said.  "They all have a device, but no supplies at home, so sometimes I'm getting, 'I'm out of paper.' Even on Google Classroom, some struggle to get to it. Some complete it, and some are not capable."

Huffman was quarantined at home for the start of this school year. "I taught at home for four days, due to exposure," she said. " When I returned, two students had to quarantine. It's taken a little while for kids, but usually, they're not quarantined long enough to get comfortable this way. Last year, we accomplished what we needed over an extended period of time. Kids really try to do their best."

Last year, Huffman was diagnosed with breast cancer, and was out for the first semester. And when she returned, she taught from home. "While they were in the classroom, guest teacher Mrs. Michelle Bell was my hands in the classroom. Lora Carr (technology integration specialist) was amazing."

Second grade teacher Suzi Huffman watches her students on the computer at her desk inside her classroom at Hillview Elementary in Newark, Ohio on September 22, 2021. Huffman has been teaching online this week because all of the students in her class are in quarantine because one of her students tested positive for COVID-19.

"Our families have also been a wonderful asset to our staff," said Hillview principal Nick Myers. "They have communicated with us through quarantines and honestly, it has been a true partnership. Truly, flexibility is the name of the game. Our teachers and staff are adapting to each situation, so that we do our best to keep learning moving ahead during these challenging times."

Despite having a year of experience with the remote learning, the challenges remain.

"There' s still technology challenges," Huffman said. "Once we worked out the technology kinks, we got into a groove. But after six weeks on Zoom, it took two or three weeks before the kids and I were comfortable with it. Then, there are challenges for the parents at home. Who's going to be home, and will they be able to help them, even while they're working?"

Newark City Schools began a one-to-one initiative this year. Teachers are using multiple types of educational technology in their classrooms on a daily basis, including learning management systems Seesaw and Google Classroom.

"Implementing the NCS quarantine protocols at the beginning of the school year was a little challenging, since classroom routines and procedures had not been mastered by students," said Whitney Bobo, integration specialist. "At this current time, the implementation is much smoother as the students each have their own assigned device and have had time to practice the procedures. Nothing can fully replace an in-person teacher, but we are able to provide students with quality online instruction and practice during their time at home."

Seth Roy, community outreach coordinator for Newark City Schools, said at one point the district had eight elementary classrooms in quarantine. "This doesn't mean that all students were quarantined, but that enough of them are that it made sense to shift online for a short while," he said. COVID-based absences districtwide declined from 362 to 262, from the previous week to last week.

"We also have taken some steps that should hopefully keep the number of students impacted by a quarantine down, such as ending carpet time and keeping the same seating arrangements between the regular classroom and special classes like gym and art," Roy said. "Our numbers of COVID cases have also fallen, which should help the number of students quarantined to continue to fall."

Mask mandates helping

Southwest Licking superintendent Kasey Perkins said after implementing a mask mandate due to high numbers at the middle school, they have seen a significant decrease in quarantine numbers. "The current mask mandate will be removed once numbers continue to remain under the district average for a minimum of two weeks," she said. "We currently have less than 3% of our population in quarantine and 0.5% of our students as confirmed positive cases. We have seen an increase in students wearing masks per the recommendation which has also helped alleviate quarantine numbers."

"Students receive their work through Google classroom,"  Perkins said of those quarantined. "Many teachers in grades K-5 have recorded videos to help with their lessons, as well as send additional packets home. It is extremely challenging for both our teachers and students, as nothing can replace in-person learning. Our teachers are struggling to keep up with teaching both in-person learners and preparing work for those at home."

The challenge becomes even greater when kids keep rotating based on who are currently quarantined, Perkins added. "We’ve had secondary teachers missing over 30 kids at a time and full elementary classrooms shut down. It’s hard to keep everyone aligned with the curriculum and lessons when there seems to be a revolving door," she said. "I would continue to encourage parents to have their children wear masks if they’re ineligible to be vaccinated, to avoid disrupting their child’s education by missing school due to quarantining." 

Several districts have gone to temporary mask mandates, in an effort to cut down on the numbers quarantined and keep students in-person.

"After Labor Day weekend, we had 10 students at our high school test positive alone that resulted in us identifying over 200 students at Lakewood High School as close contacts," Lakewood superintendent Mark Gleichauf said. "That was over 40% of our high school that could potentially be quarantined. As a result, we have required masks in our high school through Friday, Sept. 24 in order to mitigate the number of close contacts." 

"For the past two weeks, we have had all students K-12 and staff wearing a mask, and none of our K-12 students have been quarantined as a result of being a school close contact," Northridge superintendent Scott Schmidt said. "We do currently have some students quarantined due to the fact that they have ill family members at home.

"Trying to educate students who are at home due to quarantine, while the majority of students are in class engaged in interactive quality instruction, is extremely challenging and not very effective," he added. "We are staying focused on keeping all students in person and hoping to accomplish that by temporarily requiring all students to wear masks."

Schmidt noted that other districts in the area and across the state were seeing increased positive numbers, as well as increased quarantining numbers, causing them to have to make difficult decisions to close buildings or classrooms.  "We are a week behind them in starting school and can learn from some of their experiences," he said. 

Licking Valley was hit hard by the Delta variant, forcing a closure of the high school and going to remote learning, before returning in-school a couple of weeks ago. However, high school students are now required to wear masks until COVID numbers in the Valley community come down further. Masks remain optional in the elementary and middle school as case counts have remained fairly low thus far in those buildings.

"It is always a challenge to educate students remotely, because there is nothing that can replace students being in a classroom with their peers and a professionally trained educator," Valley superintendent Dave Hile said. "It is a little easier at our high school and middle school, where we have 1:1 computing in place, and students are well-versed in utilizing the computer and websites to access and submit work. But the instruction still suffers when students are not in a classroom with a teacher who can answer questions, give detailed instruction, offer feedback, and clarify things for them."

COVID numbers have come way down since the shutdown, with no positive cases at the high school as of Wednesday. It had grown to 38 when they went to remote. However, number of positive cases in the community remains a concern. As of this past week, the number of positives was at 48, four times higher than last year. But that is a drop from Sept. 8, when there were 63 community cases, compared to a high of 17 last year.

"When that number comes down significantly, (high school principal) Wes Weaver and I will discuss lifting the (mask) mandate," Hile said.

He noted that Valley has not had more than a handful of cases K-8 so far since school opened. But the opposite is occurring at Granville, where a mask mandate was put in place last week for grades K-6, where vaccinations are not yet available.

Superintendent Jeff Brown said in comparing data from this time last year to now, “The pattern from last year to this year has changed directly. Last year, saw (an) overwhelming number of cases at the middle and high school. This year, the majority of cases are at K-3, 4-6….”

Brown said changes made regarding the rules of engagement for contact tracing and quarantining since the previous school year under COVID-19 conditions have also created further impediments to responding efficiently to COVID impacts in the lower grades.

Those challenges, he said occurred, “Not because we weren’t prepared but because legislation changed.” Last year, the district was able to handle most of the contact tracing, communication, and notification of parents. "With the passage of HB 244, we are not able to discriminate against vaccination status, which requires the Health Department to be involved in the communication cycle," Brown said.

He said that working with the Licking County Health Department and the district’s team, a more streamlined process that’s working more smoothly has been put in place.

Licking Heights has a long-standing home-instruction process for children who are medically unavailable to attend school. Individual tutors or teachers are assigned to students who help monitor/facilitate the child's progress for short-term home instruction. But this year, the district does face challenges due to the limited substitute/tutor pool. "Much like other businesses, there are numerous unfilled school positions," superintendent Dr. Philip Wagner said.

Anyone interested in working in school district employment, should use the following link to access a listing of the district's job postings: https://lickingheights.tedk12.com/hire/index.aspx.

Familiar technology

Many districts are relying on technology that was already in place to teach remotely.

"If a student is quarantined, they are able to access the daily materials asynchronously through our learning management system, Schoology," Brown said. "Teachers are then following up individually with students to make sure they understand the expectations and content. We have used this format for many years for students who have an extended absence."

"We are posting lessons on Google Ed or on the grade level websites for students," said Heath superintendent Trevor Thomas. "We worked this way since we went remote in March of 2020.  This has been our approach for students in quarantine and we continue to tweak and improve this as we are able." 

Johnstown superintendent Dale Dickson said teachers prepare lessons for students on quarantine as they would for students who are absent for any other reason.

"Our district is now in a 1:1 student to computer environment, which allows lessons to be developed electronically and accessed by students on computers assigned to them," he said. "Last year we implemented the Schoology Learning Management system and teachers are continually improving their expertise in use of this system as a tool for delivering instruction in the classroom and when remote learning is necessary."

More training is being provided this month to teachers and administrators on the use of Schoology.  "The implementation of our new learning management system has created a steep learning curve for teachers, administrators, students and parents as it was put in place quickly in response to a pandemic," Dickson said. "Now that the backbone of the learning management system is in place, and our staff and students have had a year to begin using the system, we expect throughout this year all users will continue to improve their skills and make maximum use of its capabilities going forward." 

The Licking County Health Department released updated quarantine guidelines for county schools this week, through working with local administrators and analyzing local data. There are a couple of changes.

"Any student with a mask in a classroom setting, used to have to be three feet from someone with a positive case," commissioner Chad Brown said. "We took the three feet requirement out and now, if they wear a mask, they are exempt from quarantine. Another minor change is, individuals wearing a mask that maintain at least six feet of distance from an individual with COVID-19, during lunch, are exempt. That has been changed to three feet."

Brown said that COVID cases are spread out among schools, and the data is not trending towards one age group. "We check twice a day," he said. "We want to keep schools open and in-person, and we encourage them to wear masks, to decrease the number of positive cases."

dweidig@gannett.com

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