COLUMBUS, Ohio — Districts around the state have extended winter break or opted to return to remote learning due to teacher shortages brought on by an uptick in COVID-19 cases.
While some Ohio school districts are still learning in person, many have already made the switch to remote learning.
“We all felt that going back this year would feel somewhat normal and we’d get back to normal, and it's been anything but that,” said Shari Obrenski, the president of the Cleveland Teachers Union.
Before taking her role as president of the union, Obrenski was a teacher for 22 years. She said she never thought she would be helping teachers navigate virtual classrooms through a pandemic.
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) has been teaching in person since the start of the school year. Coronavirus numbers began to rapidly rise in recent weeks. The Ohio Department of Health reported 37, 626 new cases over the New Year's weekend.
Last week, CMSD announced it would go virtual the week of Jan. 3. Obrenski believes the health risk for students and staff was a deciding factor.
“We have many families that have been hit hard by COVID,” said Obrenski. “They have had losses or have had family members that have been extremely ill and so they are very concerned about the impact of COVID on their family.”
CMSD hasn’t been alone in its decision. In Summit County, Lee Eaton Elementary, which is part of the Nordonia Hills City School District, has more than 25% of the teaching staff is in quarantine or isolation. District officials made the decision to give students Monday (Jan. 3) off. Several Columbus-area schools also had to make the switch to remote learning due to teacher shortages brought on by coronavirus.
On Tuesday, these Columbus-area schools announced they will be remote for the day:
- Berwick Alternative
- Eastmoor Academy
- Fairmoor Elementary School
- Johnson Park Middle School
- Linden-McKinley STEM Academy
- Ridgeview Middle School
- Sherwood Middle School
- South High
- West Mound Elementary School
- Whetstone High School
- Yorktown Middle School
“When you have staff out and you have to combine classes, then you get class sizes that are beyond the normal. so where you might have 20 (students) in a class, you’ll see 30 to 35 in a class and they’re from multiple classes,” said Obrenski. “You’re not even able to keep the same students together; you start combining classes and then you start combining germs.”
Obrenski pointed to the current lack of access to COVID testing is another concern.
While some schools made the switch to virtual learning, others did not. Britain Wilson, a senior at Columbus Alternative High School (CAHS), a magnet school for college-bound students, said that she’s been an advocate for online learning since she saw the numbers begin to rise in December.
“COVID isn’t over in the slightest, and that's kind of why we’re in person right now even though cases are skyrocketing,” said Wilson. “It's just really scary to see how close it has hit home.”
Most schools in the Columbus City School District continued in-person learning. Returning from winter break Monday morning, Wilson said her anxiety was at an all-time high.
“I was sanitizing like every five minutes," said Wilson. "It was really scary to go back to school because everyone traveled almost over the break so they could possibly be carrying COVID or be asymptomatic and not know.”
Most districts are handling the rise in cases on a day-to-day basis. Fairfield Local Schools in Highland County extended winter break through Thursday, Jan. 6, and will reevaluate the situation later this week
Wilson is a part of the International Baccalaureate program at CAHS, which she explained as a very rigorous curriculum.
“All the teachers and students are like, 'well we really don’t want to go back to virtual,' but that's probably something that is going to happen and needs to happen in terms of safety,” said Wilson.