Schools prepare for start of tough year

By CALLAN PUGH
City editor

In preparation for the start of the school year, Wyandot County Public health has been working closely with the three schools in Wyandot County, Upper Sandusky, Mohawk and Carey, to coordinate a general plan for schools to follow in the age of coronavirus that accounts for state and Center for Disease Control guidance in the hopes of preparing schools for the unique challenges this year will present.

Director of Public Health Jeff Ritchey said as school districts began working on plans, the health department helped to provide the public health components of the plan that would address how to react when something happens, such as if there should be a case in the school. The health department has been working closely with the schools since March when schools were initially ordered closed by Gov. DeWine.

“The goal of the health department is to come up with a public health management plan that everyone’s on the same page with, so that everyone knows on day one when school opens what we’re going to do when school happens,” Ritchey said.

He explained that guidance for management of cases in schools is somewhat limited and at the August Board of Health meeting, Ritchey noted that he worked to ensure that those requirements the health department would be putting in place for the schools were tied to guidance from the Ohio Department of Health or the Center for Disease control.

Upper Sandusky Exempted Village Schools Superintendent Laurie Vent said the planning process has been very “fluid” and through the process of several changes, the school has taken its time to release information, wanting to be as certain as possible about the guidance.

“We want to make sure that people are safe and we want to make sure we’re doing what we can,” Vent said. “We have a lot of people that want their children in school physically and we know we have limitations on how much we can social distance, so we want to make sure we have precautions in place to cover things.”

All three county schools are offering online options for students or families who do not feel safe returning to lessons in person. For the students that do plan to return to school, school start times have changed. Carey has delayed a week and will start Wednesday; Mohawk has pushed its start back to Aug. 31, though teachers still returned Aug. 17 to allow more planning time; and Upper Sandusky added teacher workdays and pushed the start of school back to Sept. 8 to allow more time to adjust to changing plans.

Mohawk Local School District Superintendent Mark Burke said the district is working to keep students, and staff safe as well, working closely with the health department to update classroom set-ups to maintain as much social distancing as possible, following the mask mandate and increasing its sanitation practices. While some suggestions made by the health department were not required, Burke said the district worked to incorporate as many of the suggestions as it could to help make the year safe.

“We all believe here at Mohawk that it’s extremely important we get kids back to school — [That] we keep them in school, we keep them healthy — and we’re really hoping to have a safe year,” Burke said. “We know that there’s going to possibly be kids who get sick, and we will follow the guidance of the health department if that happens, but we believe if we follow the health and safety protocols, that we will be able to open safely and keep kids healthy and keep our doors open.”

In-person verses remote learning

One bit of guidance the health department has made that differs from some other county’s plans is to dispense with hybrid learning at levels yellow and orange, meaning all the students who opted for in-person learning will attend five days a week, full time. If the county should be moved to red (level 3), however, schools will transition to remote learning for at least 14 days.

The plan says that if the state should declare Wyandot County at the red level on a Thursday, schools would start remote learning on the following Monday, giving students and teachers another day on Friday to gather any necessary books and supplies.

“Red basically means that from a public perspective you have a very high potential for exposure to coronavirus and for the spread, and that individuals should limit activities as much as possible and follow public health orders, so you know, wearing masks, social distancing, things like that,” Ritchey explained. “The consideration that yes, if we went red, go to remote learning and at a minimum we would put that in place for at least a 14-day time period (the incubation period for COVID-19).”

Extracurricular activities also will be stopped when schools are under a remote learning plan if the county is at the red or purple level, a stipulation that has been added on since the initial guidance was released.

Burke noted that in the case of extracurriculars being suspended during a red or purple level, at least at Mohawk, games and events will be handled on a case-by-case basis and may not be fully canceled but rather postponed when possible.

Student management/symptom tracking

Plans for student management and symptom trackers also have been provided to the schools and to school nurses to help them plan for what to do when a student is sick at school, and to educate parents on how to check children before they come to school for symptoms and when to keep students home.

Ritchey said as the school year approaches, parents should be prepared for the eventuality that at some point their children will likely have to stay home. He said it will be important for parents to have plans in place for if and when this happens.

Vent said it will be very important that parents check children for symptoms and that they don’t send children to school when sick. The district is providing a decision tree for families to consult if they need help deciding if it is safe to send their child to school. Vent said if a student becomes sick during the school day, parents will be contacted to pick their child up right away, making up-to-date parent contact information very important this school year.

Burke echoed this sentiment saying the most important takeaway for parents is to not send children to school sick. The second is having updated information and a plan in place for someone to be available to pick a student up immediately should he or she become sick during the school day. Burke said the school had already worked toward guidance for parents about keeping students home during flu season.

In-school safety mandates

Guidance currently is for students and staff to wear masks at all levels during the school day, though there will be some exceptions and potential opportunities for mask breaks. Ritchey said hand washing and maintaining distancing as much as possible also will be important aspects for school plans. He noted that 6-foot distance isn’t possible in many classrooms, when traveling through the hallways and on school buses. The CDC guidance states schools should provide as much distance as is practical and to remove extra furniture from classrooms that isn’t essential that might allow for further distancing. Ritchey said schools also have purchased partitions for individual desks that could allow students to have a break from mask use when all students are seated and working quietly at their desks.

Other guidance has included increased sanitation practices for classrooms and buses between classes or routes and between school days.

According to Vent, the Upper Sandusky school board made the decision to require masks in July ahead of Gov. DeWine’s guidance that students would be required to wear masks as they return to school, because the board felt it was an important step in keeping school staff safe, just as school staff would be working to keep students and visitors safe with mask requirements. Mohawk had already determined masks would be required on school buses and adopted the stricter mask policy that included student requirements when the mandate was passed.

Masks will be incorporated as part of the student dress code at Mohawk and Upper Sandusky schools. Both superintendents said it will be enforced following discipline policies, starting with warnings and escalating for repeat offenders. Vent said students are responsible for providing their own masks, though the district will have some to provide in the case a student forgets. Burke said Mohawk schools have extra masks as well and have worked to assist families find masks for their children as necessary.

Vent said Upper’s schools can maintain at least a 3-foot distance, and at the elementary closer to 4 feet, but masks and desk partitions will help provide additional coverage to keep students and faculty safer while in the classroom from potential spread. She said teachers have been encouraged on nice days to take their classes outside for a lesson to allow for a mask break and teachers are allowed to give students mask breaks at their desks behind the partitions. The district purchased over 2,000 desk shields for students, Vent said, because they felt it was important to provide an additional measure of safety and opportunity to provide students some comfort throughout the day despite mask requirements.

Mohawk also purchased desk dividers that will provide an additional barrier around student desks. Burke said the school was working to coordinate mask breaks through the day and also would be encouraging outside lessons where possible.

Mohawk teachers are working to remove non-essential furniture in classrooms to provide additional distancing in classrooms. Burke said the school is working to get as close to 6-feet distancing as possible. Teachers will have a 6-foot space around their desks as well as personal protective equipment. Wherever possible, at Mohawk, teachers are being encouraged to utilize computers, Burke said, to avoid passing papers back and forth.

Ritchey also said that guidance suggests schools keep students in pods as much as possible so that if a case should be found at the school, only the students in the pod would be affected making it easier to limit and track who is exposed.

Vent said Upper’s district has made plans for exchanging classes at the middle school and high school level to ensure that it flows as smoothly as possible. She said masks will provide extra protection, but the school is working to keep students moving in the hallways with good traffic flow, to avoid extended exposure between students.

Classrooms also have been equipped with hand sanitizer for when students come in and leave the classroom and disinfectant sprays will be used on student surfaces between classes.

Patience is key

Ritchey said a lot of the early guidance provided to schools was completed before the CDC released guidance for schools, so the districts had something in writing they could use to begin to plan for the year. Over the last few weeks some guidance has been released and changed.

“We totally anticipate that the school guidance is going to continue to evolve based off the best information from the Center for Disease Control and the State of Ohio and then as we get that new information and update it, [we’ll] provide it to the school districts,” Ritchey said.

Carey Superintendent Michael Wank did not respond to emailed requests for comment but said at the August board of education meeting that the district is doing its best to adapt to the situation and to keep the community, teachers, and staff members in the loop to help with the decision making process.

All three superintendents have asked that parents, students, staff and the community remain patient as the year unfolds, knowing changes and adjustments will be inevitable, though all three also expressed that they hoped the year could be as normal as possible as well.

“This is going to be a difficult year for all of us,” Burke said. “We know that there are feelings on both sides, that we should be closed and remote, and there’s others that feel that kids should be in class and no masks and we should just be life as normal…. But what our focus is, is to keep kids healthy and follow the guidance that’s given to us.

“We want to keep our doors open. We want to give kids and families options. … That is my hope that we can offer a face-to-face option for students that is high quality and is safe. And the families that choose to do the online instruction, we want to provide a safe and healthy and productive, high quality education for those families as well. … We know it’s going to be a tough year, we know there’s going to be ups and downs. And if we can treat each other with grace and respect, then we will all get through it together and make the very best of a very tough situation.”

The complete plan for Carey is available at drive.google.com/file/d/1sTFd5y7JqQg0syWpzw0g0oJg5GiBFR4V/view.

See the complete reopening plan for Upper Sandusky at docs.google.com/document/d/1LFidWeipawTeUrB4josnZlZD69BCFwsAaQNjvOMg-w8/edit.

Information about Mohawk’s reopening plan is being shared online at mohawklocal.org/Community_Information.aspx.