One community reopens two schools differently

Hiawatha High School and Sabetha High School are two schools that serve the same community but have different ideas on how to keep the students and faculty safe for reopening. Hiawatha and Sabetha have been closed since March when the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States, but due to the state and local school boards, the two schools will have to reopen for in-person education for this year. With schools reopening for in-person education, health procedures will have to be put in place at the schools to keep students and faculty safe from a COVID-19 outbreak, although with little guidance from the state on health procedures much of the health procedures was left to local school boards to create, which meant that Hiawatha and Sabetha would have different health procedures for returning.

Hiawatha and Sabetha have published their return to school plans and health procedures on their websites for parents and students to view. When reading through the health procedures there are similarities between the two like an option for full remote learning, deep cleaning, group gatherings limited, staggered passing periods, physical distancing, and limited use of common areas. Even though the two schools share many of health procedures in common on major preventative measures, they have different procedures. The first major difference is that Hiawatha students and faculty are subject to temperature and health checks while at Sabetha, only adults are subject to temperature and health checks. Although the most major difference between the two is the requirement of masks. Hiawatha is requiring that masks be worn by everyone on school property while Sabetha only encourages but does not mandate masks. With masks wearing being one of the most preventative ways to slow and stop the spread of COVID-19, Sabetha not requiring them is an interesting move and one that has teachers concerned.

Johanna Brockhoff, an English teacher at Sabetha High School said, “They should all be required to wear masks at the minimum.”

Sabetha’s no masks requirement has also led to concern in the community about community spread coming from students who attend the school. When asked about the risks of community spread from the school, Brockhoff talked about how most of these students interact with students from Hiawatha outside of school, and Sabetha not requiring masks can lead to a student spreading the virus to a student at Hiawatha.

Even with different health procedures in place, the two schools are prepared to alter the learning environment if an outbreak happens at school or in the community. If there is a moderate outbreak, both schools will switch to hybrid learning, but if there is a large community outbreak, the schools will go back to remote learning.

Although these two schools have their similarities and differences when it comes to reopening schools, these two schools reopening plans show that going back to school will be very different than it was last year. Whether you are full-time virtual learning, hybrid learning, or in-person learning with health procedures, it will take a while for schools to return to normal.