As students return to school, questions and trends arise regarding COVID quarantine policies. At first, OA was not going to let students who were sick with COVID or quarantining after college travel join class virtually. As students and parents spoke out though, they revised their policy so that students who went on college visits, are sick, and are close contacts can join virtually, in addition to students who opted to go fully remote.
Unlike the hybrid model, there were only a handful of students who chose to go fully remote–much less than the 200 students opting to go remote in hybrid. Even though there were plenty of students that went remote in the beginning of the year, administration is cracking down on students who are not fully remote going virtual.
Students have been taking advantage of the more lenient COVID policies with plenty of seniors going remote due to college visits over April break. That number is expected to decline as students finish their quarantine period. The number of remote students compared to the number of students in class is striking, with almost every chair filled in some classrooms.
The one thing that remains unknown is how having more students in school will affect the number of students with COVID. Before full in-person, OA has had an average of 1-10 positive student cases per week, with 96 cases the entire year. Although, this number includes fully remote students and those who were not in the building for a week before their positive test. Since we have only been back less than a week, we do not have the new numbers, but there will likely be more close contacts if we see a rise in cases. Stay tuned for more updates on school rules and trends from the Daily Olivian.