Following two straight days of record-breaking increases to the the number of positive covid-19 cases, local K-12 and higher learning officials are staying committed to in-person learning as classes resume.
Some school districts, colleges and universities across the nation have decided to pivot to online learning in hopes of limiting the spread recently fueled by the omicron variant over the holiday break. Some higher institutions in central Arkansas have announced they're moving to online-only learning due to the rapid rise of cases in the state, which broke the single-day increase record for the third straight day (7,787 on Thursday).
The University of Arkansas campuses in Pine Bluff and Monticello are sticking with in-person learning when their spring semesters begin, but masks will be required.
"The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff is preparing to welcome students back to campus next week and will continue to enforce its existing covid-19 protocols, which includes required masking indoors," UAPB spokeswoman Stephanie Jackson wrote in a statement. "Of course, university leadership will be monitoring any impact to the campus, including student learning, and if needed, will determine and make changes to educational delivery and on-campus living."
Jackson added residential students are moving back on campus this week and classes will begin Monday.
UA-Monticello spokeswoman Kelsey Englert said in another statement: "UAM will begin the Spring 2022 semester with face-to-face instruction. The UAM Command Team is closely monitoring covid-19 projections in our area and across the country. Safety protocols are in place on campus, including the requirement that all UAM employees, students and visitors wear masks/face coverings at all times in indoor settings where physical distancing is not possible. The university strongly recommends vaccinations for all members of the UAM community to provide the fullest protection against covid-19."
UAM's spring semester will start Wednesday.
Southeast Arkansas College President Steven Bloomberg said Thursday some courses will be held online and added he reinstated a campuswide requirement for the use of masks. SEARK's traditional spring term will start Monday.
Bloomberg said he informed faculty and staff of the reestablished mandate when they returned from the holiday break earlier this week.
"A majority of general education courses are going online because they're easier to put online," Bloomberg said. "Most of our technical courses like nursing and allied health where student presence is required are not. Even though we still have a small percentage of those classes face-to-face, institutionally we are not shifting to a 100% model of instruction."
The mandate will be reviewed throughout the spring semester, Bloomberg said. It was lifted Dec. 17, and Bloomberg told SEARK board trustees at the time faculty members, students and administration felt "as comfortable as possible" with just a strong recommendation of masks with classrooms being socially distant.
BACK TO SCHOOL ... AND WEARING MASKS
Thursday marked the first day the White Hall School District mandated the wearing of face coverings for seven days after the number of covid-19 cases plus quarantines among students and staff members in the district exceeded 30. The district had eased its previous mask requirement last month, citing a decline in the number of cases and the availability of vaccines for children as young as 5.
According to the school district's covid-19 dashboard, 54 students and 12 staff members as of Thursday were active covid-19 patients. There were 116 students and one staff member actively under quarantine as of Thursday.
To close schools would be to create hardship on students and teachers, Superintendent Doug Dorris said. The district would also have to notify the Arkansas Department of Health of an intent to close, and state education officials then would have to determine whether White Hall could shut its doors, Dorris added.
"That's one reason why we established the guideline at 30, to put the mask on in hoping to get this thing slowed down," Dorris said. "It's a hardship on students and teachers. A lot of parents are working. We had so much loss of learning a year ago, and we don't need that."
CASE FOR OPEN SCHOOLS
The decision to close schools would be based more on the lack of teacher availability than any given metric, Watson Chapel School District Superintendent Andrew Curry said. The Arkansas Department of Health indicated 43 active cases of covid-19 in that district as of Thursday, a steep increase from the week's previous high of 19.
"Right now, I think it's day-by-day monitoring that is going on," Curry said. "If we can't find subs and teachers and it's unsafe to have school, we may have to go to online learning.
"Before last semester, we had cut our staff absences by 50%. I just got a text saying we had another employee test positive. Who knows? It's getting different."
In a report he gave to Watson Chapel board members last month, Curry said teachers missed a combined 1,023.5 days of work between Aug. 16 and Nov. 30, a decrease of 689 from the same period in 2020. He credited a financial incentive for which 271 of a possible 289 teachers qualified in reducing missed days.
Curry highlighted conflicting quarantining standards by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Arkansas Department of Health as a factor in lack of teacher availability. The CDC recommends a person who tests positive for covid-19 to isolate for five days and, if asymptomatic or symptoms are resolving (without fever for 24 hours), to wear a mask around others for five following days.
That recommendation is a recent update from a 10-day quarantine (or seven days if asymptomatic with a negative result) that the Health Department recommends.
"That's going to cause staffing problems there," Curry said. "I think we'll hear something on that in the next 48 hours. I don't think there's any other way to have school."
Curry is not for closing campuses amid the pandemic, citing the risk of academic struggles.
"This time last year, we had 70 kids [high school seniors] who were not on track to graduate," he said. "This year, same time, we have six kids who are not on track to graduate. The teachers have been more face to face, hands-on with kids. Our attendance rate from our teachers has had a tremendous impact on our kids."
The lack of in-person learning can affect a student's social-emotional well-being and food security, Curry added. He also blamed school closure for increased cases of child abuse.
"I think we have done our kids a horrible disservice and we caused them -- maybe not irreparable -- but we have done damage to kids by stopping the social interaction, which is so important for their growth," he said. "The way human beings learn is from each other. I think our kids are struggling with mental health, which has been caused by isolation."
Watson Chapel does not mandate masks, but Curry said he would reemphasize wearing them with faculty members Thursday.
"I just don't believe in the word 'mandate,'" Curry said, offering his most descriptive reason to date. I just don't. I think 'expectation' in school is the right word. Whenever we tell a kid to bring a pencil to class, that's an expectation. People think you're going to chase a kid and tackle him and make him put a mask down."
Pine Bluff School District Superintendent Barbara Warren could not be reached for comment.