Licking Valley High school takes precautions on COVID-19

Licking Valley High school ended their spring school session on March 13, 2020. Licking Valley started doing online classes for the rest of the year, depending on the students some benefited from it and others it didn’t go well at all. The seniors in the class of 2020 had to graduate during the middle of a pandemic. The people who were there to watch them were only the school staff and some of their families. An empty gym with a few family members and a video camera was not the way they thought they were going to end their senior year. It was a big question if any school in Ohio would open back up for the next school year. The year was going to start but not in the normal way.

The school year was announced and Licking Valley would allow kids to either do face to face or virtual learning. August 18, 2020, the upcoming freshman had their orientation. Everyone was in a mask or face shield. They did pictures and had a brief meeting in the auditorium, but everyone was 6 feet apart. August 19, 2020, was the first day of school, and it came with some significant changes. The kids were all required to wear a mask, and the desks all are somewhat 6 feet apart. One way hallways were a significant change for everyone in the building. Spanish is in the history hallway, so some kids could go from Spanish to History but have to go all the way around. Teachers, so far, are not able to do all of the plans they usually do. Working with partners is not the best option to do right now, games where kids could be touching the same object/objects, printing out papers that kids could read, and help each other edit or fix something. I interviewed Mrs. Malone about this topic. We discussed her thoughts on Licking Valley starting school in a pandemic, and these are her words.

Me/Kaylee: "So how would you say Licking Valley High School starting in the middle of a pandemic is different than starting as a regular school year?"

Mrs.Malone: "The Priorities in some ways have shifted for the beginning of the school year by far. Our goal is to get all students back and help our staff get all their new school year goals. With COVID, we rely on getting and keeping everyone safe who is coming back rather than doing virtual. How we were going to keep everyone distanced and safe was a big question we had. We came up with using one-way hallways. The lunchrooms were a bigger question just because we would have some kids from each grade in there. We then discussed that we would limit kids to tables for reference, we would have three kids at the long tables and two at the round tables and even put tables in the gym. If we were not starting in the middle of a pandemic, we would have everyone in the building, rather than having some kids online and some in person. Staff meetings staff all together were questionable because we did not know if we should have everyone in or only certain subjects at the same time. We started to focus on keeping everyone safe so we can stay in school longer. Our school staff has been working on finding a balance for online and face-to-face on getting the same type of teaching, so one is not getting more than the other, and teachers are not just focusing on the face to face kids. Freshman orientation was something we did not think was going to happen. Our team and staff thought it would be best to do one just so the upcoming freshman could truly get a sense of what the year was going to look like and see where everything was. The one-way hallways were a big thing. We wanted to see how they would work. It was good doing a trial run with smaller groups of kids rather than having everyone use them all at once."

Licking Valley High School's primary goal is to keep everyone safe. All of us are hoping to see a change and get out of the pandemic. The mask is probably one of the mandates we are hoping we can get rid of soon. Our school year's future is a big question we all have, are we going to stay in school all year or all have to switch to online. The best approach we can take as of right now is to take small steps. Keep wearing your mask even though it is challenging, wash your hands, and try your hardest to not gather in large groups unless you have to. The rest of the school year is gonna be a mystery, but it will truly be something we all will remember.