Rancho Dominguez’s Plan for a Safe Return to Campus

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Rancho Dominguez Hopes For a Safe Return To Campus For Their Students

Jayda Vaifanua, Staff Writer

With the increased rates of COVID-19 in California, Rancho Dominguez held a Return to Campus webinar where principal Keri Lew, Assistant Vice President Brian Hannon, and Attendance Counselor Luis Gomez discussed the protocols and selections of programs that parents and students can choose from. Students have a selection of either participating in hybrid learning, which requires on campus and virtual education, or online learning which only requires virtual education. Parents were supposed to fill out a survey regarding the selection process of the education of their child which can be found on the Rancho Dominguez homepage. If not completed, students are automatically placed into hybrid learning.

“I would prefer hybrid learning because online learning is very difficult for me. For me, online learning isn’t really something I would enjoy, but due to COVID, we all are behind the screen and education is a lot harder than how it was at school.” Nancy Flores, a seventh grader responded with.

Like every one of the students of Rancho Dominguez, every student who would want to come back to school would choose hybrid learning but those who wouldn’t choose online learning.
Some protocols that were mentioned are that you must be tested for COVID-19 before going back to campus if you chose hybrid learning. The schedule of hybrid learning is that students will come to the school for a portion of the week and if not on campus will remain online learning. If you choose to be in online learning and you would like to switch into hybrid learning, it will be harder to switch into hybrid than it would be if you choose to go from hybrid to online learning. This is because students will only be allowed to switch to hybrid during certain times of the semester (to be established by the district) due to the limited amount of space available within a group. Students will be provided with on-site supervised care and school bus transportation will be available if you already qualified for bus transportation from the District. LAUSD does not have a date for going back to school, but they are in the process of planning the date of return on campus, but with the recent spike of COVID-19, undetermined decisions are being made by LAUSD on a return date.

“Well, I think the teaching is definitely going to be different because some students will be online and some in class so it will be very different,” Flores said.

Due to the protocols that were told to all the students and parents who attended the webinar, there are several adjustments. There will be a big difference when returning back, but we must follow it.

“One reason why I picked hybrid is because it is a lot harder to work online and I think if we go back to school, we probably will be able to understand our work more. And just communicate with people even though we are going to have to be six feet apart,” Flores said.

We don’t know how many students chose hybrid, but it is more likely that students picked hybrid learning due to their problems with virtual learning. We are used to being at school during sessions but during the pandemic, online learning has made an impact on student’s mental health, stress, and overall engagement in the online classroom.

“My thoughts on online learning are that it is very difficult and very hard to understand what the teachers are trying to teach us and in my opinion, I am not a big fan of online learning,” Flores added.

Online learning has been hard to adjust for some students. The past few months of online learning have become a challenge for some students with them coming across certain problems like internet issues, eye strain from staring at a screen for too long, and home distractions.

“Hybrid, online can have a lot of technical issues, being Wi-Fi or computer not working. Plus online, to me, is a lot more stressful than being there physically in school,” Alana Naea, a tenth grader, said.

Alana Naea goes through the same issues as maybe other students go through. The difficulty of online learning is hard for most students but there are some students who would prefer online.

“I don’t really expect much, just want it to be normal again,” Naea added. “ Not very fond of it, to be honest, it has its ups and downs but it makes me more stressed,” Naea said.

A variety of the students wish fervently that the coronavirus never existed. Life before the coronavirus was less problematic and more enjoyable for students, and some would admit everything was better before than now.

Eighth grader Hazel Arias said she would prefer hybrid due to the technical and physical issues while online. Another difficulty students come across is too much time on screen due to the strain that it causes on their eyes and the headaches that come along with it.

“Hybrid learning because from online learning my eyesight has gotten worse and I have been getting many headaches from staring at a screen for a long time,” Arias said.

“I think online learning isn’t so good for students who aren’t learning as much as they did in person and because online learning is more difficult than in class,” Arias added.

Although we are online, it is much more difficult to learn new lessons and also turn in work as there can be several issues that might cross. Students have said that more work has been given to them during virtual classes than during regular class sessions, increasing the stress they already have being stuck at home.

“Having blockers between student’s tables or having a student sit on one chair and the chair after that another student and all students wearing masks and dismissing one class at a time so there won’t be so many students in the hallway.”

Arias expects that when students return back to campus, that they will assure them of being safe and have safety measures be in place.

“Having blockers between student’s tables or having a student sit on one chair and the chair after that another student and all students wearing masks and dismissing one class at a time so there won’t be so many students in the hallway.” Arias proposed.

Students eagerly wait to return to campus with the implementation of hybrid learning. With students disliking online learning, they hope to see that hybrid learning will have some amount of semblance to school life prior to the lockdown.

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