Students across central Ohio are preparing to head back into classrooms one year after changing the way they learn drastically due to COVID-19.
“I was on the bus on my way home and we all got an alert on our phones saying students won’t be returning to school for another three weeks,” said senior at Columbus City Schools Breanna Lovelace.
Lovelace said she and her friends were excited to have an extra-long spring break.
“Little did we know it would take over for the next year,” Lovelace said.
In the last year, she’s one of several students who have not seen their peers or teachers in person. She’s among the high school students who will head back to in-person learning Monday, March 15.
Lovelace said in the last year learning has been very difficult, and she’s had a hard time keeping herself motivated and being her own teacher.
Families in other school districts said they’ve experienced the same struggles.
Hilliard City School parent of two Amy Essex Chamberlain also teaches college-level courses at Columbus State Community College.
“It was a tough transition for me. I went to spring break and I just didn’t go back, and I haven’t been back to campus since March of last year,” Chamberlain said.
Her family decided to set up their workstations in their kitchen and start their day at 10 each morning to help motivate one another.
“The whole organization petered out and everyone just started doing their own things on their own times and in their own spaces and that worked out for us too,” Chamberlain said.
She’ll send one of her two children back into the buildings for full in-person learning on March 15 while the other will continue with remote through the end of the year.
Other parents said their children were the ones who didn’t feel comfortable enough to head back into the buildings this spring.
“It’s just been too scary for them, you know it’s like every time somebody coughs or sneezes they [her children] are thinking this kid has COVID and they sit right next to me,” said Upper Arlington mother of four Amy Enochs.
Enochs has a set of triplets who were divided on staying at home or heading back into the classrooms for full in-person learning.
The family decided to keep with virtual learning to keep everyone safe but now Enochs is wondering how their continued online education will affect their mental wellbeing.
Many parents and educational leaders are also discussing how the pandemic and change of learning has affected students learning and created a “learning gap”.
Westerville Superintendent John Kellogg said there’s a lot to consider when looking at helping students to catch up.
“I think we need to be very careful about how we determine what those gaps are and what we’re benchmarking against moving forward… To rush to try to fill that gap in a really quick fashion and trying to address learning gaps which may have less relevance than others, it might just make school that much more frustrating,” Kellogg said.
Kellogg said his district doesn’t plan on rushing to push books in front of students.
“I think the first thing we need to say is, ‘How are you doing,’ and start from there and move forward.”