By Eleanor Love, News and Sports Editor
The Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) is continuing with in-person instruction despite major student and staff absences as the highly contagious Omicron variant rages across the nation.
The district’s Reopening Dashboard shows that SCUSD has 322 active COVID cases among students and staff as of Tuesday, January 11 at 8:45 a.m. However, these numbers do not reflect positive tests taken at home, nor do they reflect positive tests taken outside of district testing sites.
If SCUSD were to shift to online learning, it would be a district-level decision under guidance from the County Office of Education and the state, explained C.K. McClatchy Principal Andrea Egan.
“As you can imagine, most educators are earnestly working to keep school doors open as we recognize the impact school closures had on student mental health and learning loss students suffered due to prolonged closures. It’s unclear if our area will reach the full tipping point that might necessitate temporary closures due to staffing challenges,” Egan said.
Sacramento County has not yet responded to inquiries by The Prospector about when the county would consider closing schools. The county has passed 200,000 confirmed cases of COVID. About 28,000 of those cases have come in the past two weeks. As of Tuesday, 464 are hospitalized, compared to 267 last week and 165 two weeks ago, said Sacramento Bee reporter Mike McGough.
According to social studies teacher Lori Jablonski, McClatchy currently has about a 50 to 55 percent attendance rate. Multiple teachers are absent but the school has been fortunate to receive a decent number of substitutes to cover classes. In some cases, teachers are using their prep periods to fill in for missing teachers.
In an effort to combat staffing shortages, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Tuesday that loosens state barriers that delay the hire of qualified short-term substitutes.
McClatchy’s on-site testing room has been averaging about 400 tests a day. Students are now required to receive a pass from a teacher in order to test. Those who are experiencing symptoms are also required to wait in the pool area until they receive their test result.
In order to accommodate absent students and teachers, McClatchy has completely adjusted its finals week schedule. Typically, first semester finals take place during the last week of January and consist of three days of two two-hour exams. However, instead of hours-long exams, the school will be using the last week of the semester to focus on mental health and social emotional learning.
“As COVID cases have increased along with student and staff absences, a site level agreement has been made to minimize traditional comprehensive final exams this semester. Our site level concern is students having missed important instruction to prepare for a cumulative final and/or they may be absent during finals week due to illness or quarantine,” Egan said in an update on Tuesday, January 12.
Some teachers may still choose to give unit tests or modified final tests, but for the most part traditional finals will not be administered.