Oliver Ames High School has seen a rise in COVID cases in the past few weeks, tossing the winter sports season in limbo and forcing more and more students to stay home because of close contacts.
From the start of the New Year to January 29th, there have been 98 confirmed cases in the Easton Public Schools system. These cases fit the winter vacation timeline, when the world saw an uptick in cases as a result of the holiday gatherings. The world has overall been flabbergasted by rising case numbers, vaccine shortages, and a new, more contagious variant of the virus spreading. People seem to have mixed opinions on the severity of these cases, with an increased level of confusion overall.
“I anticipated we might have more students interested in returning but I think people are also still nervous so it’s understandable that the number of returning students wasn’t higher.”
Susan Mancuso
Guidance Department HeadSchools as a whole have had mixed results. Some have decided to go fully remote for the next 2 weeks, others have shut down for the foreseeable future. A few schools have been remote for the entire year, only opting to go back towards the end of January.
Oliver Ames High School has had a mixed bag of results. The Easton Public School system has seen relative success in quelling the in school spread of the virus, but has also seen multiple sports teams shut down temporarily due to contact tracing and positive cases. Several OA teachers have also tested positive.
Many students are concerned about that information not being reported to them, including Lauren, who stated “I felt uncomfortable not knowing how many cases the school had and finding out about multiple cases through friends that the school didn’t tell the community about.”
Just last week, the schools responded by launching the EPS Covid-19 Dashboard, tracking cases throughout the schools.
This lack of transparency has had a noticeable effect on students and their families. According to OA Vice Principal TJ Flanagan, at the start of the year “approximately 10% of the student population was remote and now approximately 20% of the student population is now remote.”
Junior Cassandra Cronin is one of the students who transitioned from hybrid to remote learning.
“I decided to go to full remote because I was going somewhere over break. I did not want to chance getting quarantined from sitting next to someone who had it and then having to miss my trip by quarantining.”
Mid-January was also the first of two opt-in dates, where full remote students can choose to return to school. Guidance director Susan Mancuso said “we had 29 students return from remote status in mid-January.”
When asked about if this number was surprising or not, she elaborated on the aforementioned fear, saying, “I anticipated we might have more students interested in returning but I think people are also still nervous so it’s understandable that the number of returning students wasn’t higher.”
There is light around the corner however, with cases in both the Commonwealth and the United States trending downward, as more and more vaccinations are being distributed. The Biden administration is on track to complete its ambitious goal of 100 million shots in its first 100 days, with deals slated to produce 300 million doses of vaccine by the end of the summer.
With the next opt in date not until April, and vaccine production ramping up, Oliver Ames High School will hopefully soon be a thriving social environment sooner rather than later.