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Education

Combs teachers, students differ on in-person education

District was among first to return to hybrid learning

Posted 10/2/20

Students and teachers at Combs High School have mixed feelings about the reopening of the school amid COVID-19.

From various protests of teachers participating in a “sick-out” to …

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Education

Combs teachers, students differ on in-person education

District was among first to return to hybrid learning

Posted

Students and teachers at Combs High School have mixed feelings about the reopening of the school amid COVID-19.

From various protests of teachers participating in a “sick-out” to students and parents that held a rally for in-person instruction to resume, J.O. Combs Unified School District resumed in-person instruction Sept. 8, after the governing board voted 4-1 to have the schools continue in a hybrid format of schooling.

On Aug. 27, the governing board of J.O. Combs Unified School District decided to have in-person instruction resume with the choice to continue to attend virtually if students wanted to. At the meeting, governing board clerk Bob D’Elena voted to resume in-person instruction after voting against it in the few meetings prior because of benchmark standards the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended meeting before resuming normal instruction.

When the board was looking at the second benchmark that, according to the CDC, “requires two consecutive weeks with percent positivity below 7%,”  Pinal County had hit its first week of meeting the requirement with only having 6% positivity at the time of the meeting.

“If you look at numbers that have been reported so far for the next week, they look to also be moving in the right direction,” D’Elena said.

Chad McLeod, a governing board member, motioned for resuming normal instruction because although the numbers were “fluctuating,” he didn’t want the schools to constantly be in a “yo-yo” of whether or not students and teachers were in class.

Dr. David Nelson, a psychology teacher at Combs High School and president of the Combs Education Association, said he believes  the board should have delayed the reopening of the schools, a position that has garnered community backlash Dr. Nelson said included threatening emails and obscene name-calling. 

“We don't know really what we're dealing with as far as how it's going to affect kids,” Dr. Nelson said, “and as we're seeing with the schools that have opened earlier with the amount of outbreaks, I don't think it affects kids the way it affects my age bracket.”

According to Dr. Nelson, several faculty members at Combs High School are over 50, with various health issues that put them at higher risk. Dr. Nelson himself has heart issues and his wife is currently battling cancer, putting them both at high risk.

Dr. Nelson said he believes  politics have been the leading matter of why the district has reopened. The district has taken a more “top-down” approach on its decision of reopening, where little input is taken from teachers, according to Nelson. This approach has damaged the “morale” of the staff and faculty at Combs, according to Nelson.

“I think the last three years of positive work we've done through our collaborative committee and working together has been washed away,” Nelson said.

According to Nelson, about 28 teachers have resigned, with three new ones this past Friday, and a dozen teachers are on paid sick leave. He expects more teachers to resign in the future. Nelson is currently considering retiring based on what has been occurring.

Parents have contacted Nelson asking about confirmed cases since the reopening. The district has been reporting cases to Pinal County Public Health, but have not been publicly releasing any confirmed cases to families, according to Dr. Nelson.

District officials said they have not had a case of COVID-19 at any school, but are relaying health information to Pinal County officials. The district also has sent a wavier to families detailing the risks of sending children back for in-person learning.

With the hybrid format at Combs, classes are varying in the number of attendees. Nelson’s classes can vary from having three students in-person with 22 attending virtually to his next class having 36 in class and seven at home.

Juggling teaching both a virtual and in-person class, Dr. Nelson said, feels like he’s “filming a TV show,” and can be a hassle, especially when internet issues occur. Last week, Combs High School had an internet outage, leaving virtual attending students unable to attend their classes. Dr. Nelson said he will now have to reteach the lesson to the virtual students, while the in-person students relearn the lesson.

Chad Moyes, a senior at Combs High School who was a participant in the reopen rally, pushed for in-person instruction to resume because virtual learning made him feel unmotivated.

At the beginning of the school year online it started with me fully into it,” Mr. Moyes said, “but given a couple of weeks, I had my camera off, muted, and I turned the computer away because I was doing something else.”

Mr. Moyes said he believed  when the district decided at first to push back the day for in-person instruction following the teacher sick-out the decision took a “toll” on him. The decision came when he was purchasing back-to-school supplies for his last year of high school.

“I was a little upset, I was ready to go back for my senior year and I kinda felt like it was being taken away from me,” Mr. Moyes said.

Combs High School has been persistent with students wearing masks and using hand sanitizer, according to Mr. Moyes. But it has been reported that some teachers have not enforced wearing masks and groups of students are constantly being reminded to wear their masks during school, according to Dr. Nelson.

Mr. Moyes stated he has to “deal with wearing a mask at work for six hours” and doesn’t really like wearing a mask for another six hours at school but understands and respects the school’s choices. 

Cheyenne Stewart, a junior at Combs High School, has been attending virtually despite the school reopening. Ms. Stewart didn’t have a preference for reopening or continuing virtually.

“I knew a lot of people were scared for their families so I get that aspect of learning, but I also understand the side of people that push for in-person due to no human interaction,” Stewart said. "For me personally, I was just going to go with what my family thought was best.”

Stewart plans to return to campus  Oct. 6 for in-person instruction after the school’s fall break. She has attended virtually on behalf of her parents’ request to see how the school handled returning to in-person instruction.

“My parents said to wait until fall break because they didn’t want me to get my hopes up and have the school shut down again after a week,” Stewart said.

Stacy Johnson, a freshman English teacher at Combs High School, was pushing for resuming in-person instruction because she believed the social and mental health needs of students were not being met virtually.

Public education is more than just book learning. There are things kids only learn at school, and for many students, this is their safe place. Kids need to know there are people who are worried about them and want them to be successful,” Ms. Johnson said. “Some kids are enjoying or at least appreciating the online aspect, and that’s great. I have many students online who are thriving. It’s the ones who aren’t and that aren’t responding that I worry about.”

Ms. Johnson said she believes trying to return to a sense of normality is difficult, and the fear of getting sick is a constant thought in most people’s minds.

Teachers are experiencing burnout from juggling virtual and in-person classes, but Ms. Johnson said she is hopeful the school will grow from this experience and persevere.

This has been very difficult for all parties, no matter what side of the fence you sit on. There is a fear of getting sick or taking it home to their families,” Ms. Johnson said. “For some, there is a relief that things are in the process of getting back to normal. There is going to be growth for everyone, or at least hopefully there will be.”

Crystal Grassi is a student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.