With coronavirus cases increasing in the Verde Valley, the Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District Governing Board met virtually on Tuesday, Dec. 8, to discuss how to respond. After hearing from Yavapai County Community Health Services Director Leslie Horton, the board voted unanimously to follow COCSD Superintendent Steve King’s recommendation, to end in-person learning for the semester one day early on Thursday, Dec. 17, making Friday, Dec. 18, a day of remote learning.
The board voted to return in-person after the winter break on Monday, Jan. 11, after a week of remote learning starts Monday, Jan. 4.
“That allows us the time to see what is happening in our community, what is happening with our metrics, happening with our schools, and what is happening with our next instructional model, to make a quality decision,” King said.
Horton made the case to the school district that while the spread of coronavirus cases are high — there are 24 patients hospitalized with the virus at 99-bed Verde Valley Medical as of Tuesday, Dec. 8, Center — the evidence so far in Yavapai County and nationwide has not suggested that schools are a significant sources of COVID-19 spread, and most of the cases that have occurred in school districts seem to be coming from the outside, not as a result of spread within classrooms.
“I strongly believe that kids are better off in school,” Horton told the Governing Board. “I am also a parent of a 9- and 12-year-old. I know that my children are better off in school, even though they have a safe home environment, they struggle with online learning, and I know that a lot of other parents say the same. Even if you ask the children, they say the same. It is commendable how much work our teachers have put in to creating distance learning environments that work for our kids, but that being said, our kids are still struggling, and they need — especially those younger grades — they need a teacher.”
Horton also praised the district’s plan by pointing to what appears to be a significant peak in COVID-19 cases in the area after the Thanksgiving holidays, which may be abating slightly in the days since.
Horton suggested that keeping the schools closed for the week after the holidays could allow for the district and health experts to assess the state of the viral spread before returning.
The state’s guidelines are just that, and individual school district governing boards can decide to be open for in-person classes, online only or a hybrid of the two, based on local conditions.
According to state guidelines, these suggest the county’s districts are still suggested to use the “hybrid” delivery model.
The three metrics that the Arizona Department of Health Services recommends schools use are cases per 100,000, test positivity rate and hospital visits due to respiratory symptoms. In Yavapai County, the first two metrics have all reached the “Substantial Transmission” or “red” category, and in the third category, is in the “Moderate Transmission” or yellow category for one week and red in the second week.
The board intends to meet that first week of January to both reassess the state of the district and the community, but also to discuss what version of learning the district hopes to move forward with for the spring semester.
King presented five options to the board — a five-day in-person week with shortened school days, four-day in-person week with the fifth being taught remotely, an A/B option where half of students attend on each day and alternate, a split online/in-person model with specific teachers teaching only online classes and students planning ahead to be only remote or only in-person, and a remote-only option.
The board was not asked to select a specific option at this meeting, but rather to give district staff some instructions, and expressed throughout the meeting disapproval of a plan to return only remotely.
King told the board that the biggest difficulty so far in dealing with the virus has been the ability to keep teachers and staff in place, since adults are more susceptible to the virus than children. Every district in the area has found it close to impossible to find substitutes, and Camp Verde Unified School District, which had initially been the district most aggressive in its desire to open in-person early and remain open, had to close down last week due to staffing shortages.
King and the board acknowledged the difficulties for teachers and staff, but expressed a desire that as long as the school can find ways to stay open in-person, it would.
“Our children thrive in in-person education, and unfortunately they don’t thrive as much with online,” Board President Eric Marcus said. “Our No. 1 concern, I believe, as a district, has to be the safety and education of our children. No. 1. Clearly in-person education provides the best educational experience, the best emotional and socialization experience, and as Director Horton has pointed out, is the safest.
“We see so many children struggle with distance learning, especially our youngest children. I really believe that when we come back in January to decide what to do with the next semester, that decision needs to take all of that into account, and seriously consider how best we can keep schools open to our students.”
Marcus and others on the board floated the possibility of beginning the January term two days earlier, returning on Thursday, Jan. 7, but King argued that taking the whole week would allow the district to best prepare for safe in-person learning.
Jon Hecht can be reached at 282-7795 or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
