This Ohio school has reduced spacing measures and is open to everyone 5 days a week

For millions of families in the United States, this is a reminder of how things were a year ago, before pandemic blockades or an expected future were still too far away to see clearly.

Everyone wears a mask and the narrowest aisles are only one-way. But teachers can move around classrooms and students can easily ask questions and see their friends, in person, at school, five days a week.

Principal Melissa Ladowitz said she believed there would be different challenges to getting her school back in person amid fears that older children would be more susceptible to contracting and spreading the coronavirus, and with more national focus on the younger grades.

“High school students generally have a lot more freedom than those in elementary school, but we knew we could teach them new routines and procedures,” she said.

But even she was surprised at how well it went, even with the team demonstrating, modeling and supervising the use of masks, keeping their distance and so on.

“They follow these routines,” said Ladowitz of his students. “We were surprised by the quality.”

Mirrored CDC guidelines – and replaced

The drive to reopen Southwest Licking schools began several months ago, when a summer survey of parents found that 70% of them wanted their children back to school.

School superintendent Kasey Perkins said that once they got that mandate, they had to figure out how to make it work, and they partnered with local health officials to make a plan.

But there are no new ventilation systems – instead, more doors are opened and corridors made unidirectional – and, critically, the health team said that 3 feet of distance between desks would be sufficient if students were masked, half of the 6-foot CDC.

This decision initially attracted some skepticism, especially from teachers like Sleeper.

“In the fall, I didn’t know what to expect. The orientation was 6 feet and here we go with 3 feet ”, she said. “I was scared.”

Six months later, Sleeper’s mind is still.

“The spread is not there,” she said of coronavirus infections. “We just set our expectations and the children followed, and it has been fantastic. You get to elementary and high school and think there will be this challenge … What we found is that they want to be in school and they are happy to follow ours orientation and controlled environment. “

Reducing space requirements was critical across the district. At Watkins Middle School, which has the largest student body of around 1,000 children, they transformed all available spaces into a classroom for about 870 who returned.

Superintendent Perkins said that some students and staff tested positive for Covid-19, but no cases were detected for being hired at the school.

“I believe it is because they wear their masks and do so diligently,” she said.

Facing the fear of the unknown

Sleeper knows it will be difficult for teachers to return. “I had many teachers in the district who opposed it earlier this year and not because we didn’t love the children, but because there was that real feeling that they were going to be sick themselves.”

What made the difference for her was to see what happened to the protocols established by the district and their application.

“The only way to see this is to go through it. And I know it is difficult because you have to overcome this fear to enter the classroom, ”said Sleeper.

Perkins saw this fear in his district’s staff and asked them to trust it.

“This is a difficult thing, and it was difficult for our team,” she said. “I think if you ask them now, they’ll say it was the best decision we made.”

And she has an offer for those who are still nervous in other neighborhoods.

“Come to our schools, walk and see our one-way corridors. See our transition times,” she said. “Take a look at our classrooms, see our cafeteria, see what we have done and what we have been successful with. So that you can model it for yourself.”