Top stories of 2020: Schools balance health and education as COVID-19 surges

Throughout the term, schools faced challenges to stay open.

• Julia Agos/WITF
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  Julia Agos was a reporter and the host of All Things Considered for WITF.

(Harrisburg) — The Wolf Administration received pushback for its pandemic-related school shutdown in March. This fall, until a recent surge in cases, it had largely been letting school districts decide how to handle instruction and extracurriculars.

Gov. Wolf’s original school shutdown order was supposed to just last 10 days, but ended up remaining in effect the rest of the academic year.

“We need to eliminate as many physical contacts as we can to prevent further spread of COVID 19 and we need to work together to do this,” he said when announcing the closures.

Across the region, parents had to find ways to cope with their school-aged children suddenly at home. And schools canceled sporting events, proms and altered plans for graduations as the virus persisted.

In the fall, the state recommended schools reopen using remote, hybrid, or in person learning plans based on the rate of community spread of COVID 19.

Many parents wanted their children in schools for in person instruction, worrying remote learning would leave students behind.

But many teachers, including Michael Williams, a second-grade teacher at Mountain View Elementary in Dauphin County, worried about the health and safety of staff in the building.

“Teachers want to be back with full in person learning, and that’d be great in a normal year, but this is not a normal year,” he said.

Throughout the term, schools faced challenges to stay open, explained Chambersburg Area School District Superintendent Dion Betts.

“If a child has several teachers throughout the day, and those teachers are exposed and need to be quarantined, it very quickly, if a teacher teaches multiple grades, it really effects our ability to teach those areas,” he said.

Now, with what Gov. Wolf has called “unprecedented levels” of transmission, the Department of Health has put in place new restrictions, including a pause on extracurricular activities at schools.

The state is also mandating schools that have in-person learning comply with COVID-19 protocols or they will have to go remote instruction.

Lancaster school board president Dr. Edith Gallagher said now, school leaders are left with a dilemma.

“We were elected to make education decisions and we’ve been forced to make public health decisions, because the people who I think should make those decisions are not making those decisions,” she said. “And right now, it’s a matter of life and death.”

The Central Dauphin School District along with Susquehanna Township School District and the School District of Lancaster have transitioned to remote learning.

All plan to re-evaluate the learning model over winter break.