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The last few months of the school year were positive for East Muskingum Local Schools, considering the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Superintendent Dave Adams believed the students adjusted well to the situation, given the challenges remote learning posed to all students.

East Muskingum Local Schools Superintendent Dave Adams

“I think they handled it well. Young people adapt a lot of times much better than adults who are set in their ways. I know 100 percent what our kids missed the most was each other. They missed their friends,” said Adams.

East Muskingum Local Schools began remote learning after Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced the decision to close all schools in the state on March 11.

Some students have limited or no internet access, which made it challenging for teachers to administer assignments strictly online.

“We do know that we have about 10 to 12 percent of our student population with no internet access,” said Adams.

The school district mailed paper packets to students who needed or preferred that form of learning to work around problems with internet connectivity.

Administrators came up with an innovative way to collect students’ assignments after they completed them, setting up delivery stations at each building in the district.

“The Daily Jeffersonian, the newspaper in Cambridge, we contacted them…they have [newspaper stands], but they don’t use them anymore. So, they let us use several of those, and we placed those strategically at each building…that gave parents an opportunity to drop off work so that then teachers could review, provide feedback, grade as needed, and so, therefore, we were trying to do our best,” said Adams.

John Glenn High School seniors are featured on the digital sign at John Glenn High School.

Adams considered the district to be fortunate because other school districts have higher rates of students without access to the internet.

“There are some schools and districts…saying that theirs is 30 to 40 percent of their students without internet connectivity,” said Adams.

Overall, East Muskingum Local Schools received widespread support from the local community for how they handled the situation.

“We had very good support from our parents and community members that this was the prudent thing, the wise thing to do to ensure safety for students and staff members and general community. The better we did at staying at home and social distancing, the better chance our community had of staying as healthy as possible,” said Adams.

Storied Rivals Sports Media produced John Glenn High School’s Class of 2020 commencement ceremony. The program premiered May 28.

Adams is unsure how schools will resume in the fall but is looking to Governor DeWine and health experts to create as safe a plan as possible for the district.

“The Governor and some of the health officials have indicated that possibly it will be a hybrid or blended approach where maybe students would come two days a week,” said Adams.

The hybrid form of learning would split groups of students into predetermined groups and allow them to come to school a limited number of days per week.

The goal is to ensure safety by slowly reintegrating students back into the social aspects of a school environment.

“The hybrid to us would be a combination of you’re in school two days and then the other three you are at home interacting, working on assignments, and then, there’s feedback when you get back. That would allow us, by splitting those groups and those class sizes basically in half, to comply with social distancing requirements,” said Adams.

Signs with names of John Glenn High School 2020 seniors were lined up along Main Street at the end of the school year.

East Muskingum conducted a survey asking parents and guardians of students about potential plans to return to school in the fall.

“We learned in our survey, it’s clear that our parents want their children to come back to school, and we know our students want to come back to school,” said Adams.

Although parents want their children to return to a proper learning environment, some are hesitant to send their children back if there remains uncertainty about safety.

“There will be a percentage of our parents and families who will say, ‘we’re not sending our children back until we know for sure,’ and they will continue with what we call the remote learning,” said Adams.

Many parents want their children to return to a typical school environment without having to worry about wearing a mask or adhering to social distancing guidelines.

“That was actually our most controversial question. It was literally fifty-fifty. If your child is required to wear a mask when we restart school, would you send them to school? And 50 percent of the people said no. So, right off the bat, there’s 50 percent of our student population who is going to be in some kind of remote learning plan,” said Adams.

Perry Elementary School, located on Route 40, has displayed positive messages for the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As far as sports are concerned, Adams does not know the capacity in which those will continue in the fall.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) is allowing student-athletes to slowly resume training for their respective sports in a manner that limits the amount of contact one has with others.

“The OHSAA has released some guidelines to allow our student-athletes to get what they call skill coaching. So, it’s really not a team aspect of it, but they can come in in groups of 10 or less and either practice their sport or maybe weight training,” said Adams.

Adams and other administrators in the district have three options to consider when planning to start school again in the fall, and every aspect of those options must be carefully evaluated.

“Until someone tells us differently, that’s what we’re going to try to do is follow the guidelines to the best of our ability and plan next year in three ways. Everybody comes back as normal, we come back in what is called a hybrid mode, or we start the school year, and I think this would be devastating to a lot of people, in a complete remote manner,” said Adams.

The safety of all people in the community is the primary concern for East Muskingum Local Schools.

“If it’s regarding students, staff, or anyone’s safety, it makes the decision a lot easier,” said Adams.

The first day of school for East Muskingum Local Schools is scheduled for Aug. 26, but the extent to which students return is still unknown for many schools in the local area, the state of Ohio, and much of the country.