By Elise Almeida and Alaina Wall
If everything goes accordingly, Cascade High School and Icicle River Middle School will be the last schools in the district to reopen following a hybrid model during the pandemic. The schools are scheduled to reopen on January 19th and less than half the students will be in the school at any given time. The wait between now and January 19th has parents, staff, and students anxious about how the new plan will work for them.
Students will be back in classrooms Tuesday, January 19th, and according to the plan presented by Mr. Daley here: Cascade High School Hybrid Return, students are divided by last name into two groups: A-L and M-Z, with exceptions being made to keep students on similar schedules to other family members. The first group, A-L, will be attending school on Mondays and Tuesdays; the other, M-Z, on Thursdays and Fridays. Students will have all four periods in the half day in person, making the classes 55 minutes per period. Classes will start at 8 am and will end at noon. If a student has 1A and 1B classes, then Monday will be 1A and Tuesday will be 1B for students in the first group; for students in the other group, Thursday will be 1A and Tuesday will be 1B. Wednesday will remain a workday for teachers to grade and plan and for students to reach out for help with their grades or assignments. After in-person class is over, students are expected to do independent work in the afternoon. For the families who choose to stay remote, students will have four days a week of zooms in the afternoon from 1pm to 3pm, twenty-five minutes each to make sure they are caught up on the assignments they need to do. These remote classes will be held via Zoom on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Minor adjustments may be made to this schedule if needed as time goes on.
Choir class will not be singing; instead, they will be learning about music theory and occasionally playing string instruments. Similarly, in band, there will be no playing wind instruments in-person. However, class will include playing non-wind instruments and learning about music theory.
Meals will not be held on school grounds, but all students can pick up a lunch and breakfast on their way out of school if needed.
Busses are running on modified routes and are taking safety precautions. For more information, please call (509) 548-6039.
While on campus, all students are required to follow guidelines mandating social distancing and mask wearing in order to ensure the safety of students, staff and the extended Kodiak family.
There’s no denying that most staff and students can’t wait to get back to their classrooms. Math teacher, Mr. Davies, exclaimed, “I’m excited to have the kids back. I miss the positive energy and big smiles. We will all have to be cautious and wear our masks.”
Similarly, Mr. Bard, math and science teacher at Cascade, exclaimed, "I am looking forward to connecting to our students in person again, sharing and interacting on a more intimate level, and to doing some hands-on activities together.”
Teachers aren’t the only ones eager to get back in the building. Sophomore, Zoë Boggs said, “I am excited but I’m also a little nervous about having lost my social skills. It’s been so long; it will feel so different. But my excitement overpowers my apprehension.”
However, some staff, parents, and students at Cascade High School are still skeptical about the Covid-19 rise, which can influence many people’s opinions about whether to go back or not. Mrs. Ravits stated, “I do think that schools should reopen as soon as possible as long as we’re following guidelines from the CDC and the DOH and as long as the data continues to support the claim that schools are safe. My main reason why I want schools to reopen as soon as possible is that I’m seeing some students really struggling and suffering with their academics and their mental health with the prolonged school closure and if it’s safe to reopen schools.” As long as protocols are followed, transitioning to in-person school again should be safe, but apprehension towards it is very reasonable.
In keeping with CDC guidelines each student needs to sit in individual desks six feet apart away from others and the teachers. If a student or teacher gets sick, they would need to immediately leave school or stay home and report it to Mr. Daley, the principal of Cascade High School. Parents will need to monitor their children of any Covid symptoms and taking a Covid test if needed. Schools are modifying the air-conditions and controlled ventilations to have barriers between the students and staff. Sanitation and disinfection practices will come into play after every use. The school is doing a deep clean throughout the school rooms and hallways every Wednesday.
Even when students and staff go back to in-person school there will be worries and doubts about if it was the right choice or not. Depending on the person, people will now have to be more cautious about their actions around others. Junior, Chase Runions concluded, “I think that at some point we will go back to ‘normal’ although we will probably have many new policies and procedures to prevent something like this from happening again.” Chase went on to say that he believes a vaccine will be the point when everything can start going back to normal. He concluded by saying, “I would like to go back to school, but gradually and safely, every time we have tried to open things up quickly during this pandemic, it’s only caused more problems, so going back to school will be great once we are sure that it’s safe.”
Cascade School District is among several others in Chelan county that have begun reopening. Many other schools have been thinking about making plans for in-person or have already started hybrid style learning. Wenatchee High School has a plan called “Projected Reopening Timeline,” which explains which grades should do in-person school. The youngest being 3rd grade on December 14th to middle school and high school by January 26th. Since Wenatchee High School is a huge school containing around 2,067 students, they are going slower. Protocols include parents/guardians staying in their vehicles when picking and dropping off their kids, busses changing their routes to accommodate children needs, and meal services for students. If a student comes down with a cold or Covid-19 symptoms, they must check with their healthcare professionals and report to the school office.
Starting November 23, the Cashmere School District started offering in-person school for grades k-12. Currently, the entire district is in phase 2 from the recovery program. Even though they have had several cases of COVID-19 in their schools since reopening, they believe they were transmitted outside of the school premises. Superintendent Glenn Johnson said, “Our students’ mental health is being negatively impacted without an in-person option. We have seen the joy and excitement the in-person option has brought our K – 6th students, and we believe it would be remiss not to offer an in-person option to our 7-12th students to provide the social and emotional support that is as important, if not more, than the academics they receive.” The newsletter goes on to say that they respect the families who choose not to come back this year in-person. It also shows that schools are quite low at risk for transmission of the virus as long as guidelines and protocols are followed.
CHS is planning to open on Jan. 19. The case numbers for Leavenworth are high, but Cascade staff is optimistic that reopening, if done correctly and safely, can help some students with their overall learning and well-being.
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