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LISBON -- With students attending from across the county and students needing hands-on learning experiences in the career paths, the Columbiana County Career and Technical Center is trying to walk the narrow path between protecting the entire community and going remote.
Assistant Superintendent Jeremy Corbisello said they keep monitoring what the other schools are doing and making their decisions based on each school. Students from a school which has gone remote -- currently United, Wellsville and Columbiana -- are also remote at the CCCTC.
Corbisello points out there are students from 10 communities who attend and buses come from those communities three times a day, which could cause the virus to spread across the county. While it is not ideal for students who have to go to remote, they are able to take the same lessons at the same time as their peers with the class streamed live.
"I would rather my students learn remotely and learn from our teachers than have our teachers get sick and our students here with substitutes," Corbisello said.
While he would rather see the students attending their career classes at the CCCTC, he believes there will come a point when the coronavirus numbers require the schools to pull back to help with the case management by keeping students away from each other.
As of last week, Corbisello said there had been an accumulative number of 78 people from the CCCTC who had been quarantined and only three actual cases. A jump over the weekend has increased that number to 105 who have been affected. Quarantines can last 14 days or longer depending on the situation.
Superintendent Chuck Adkins noted each school district in the county is having to make these decisions meeting together on Zoom calls and sharing ideas and information with the health department and the ESC. Yet every school has its own situation. Each school has a different master agreement with its staff and its own lack of staffing concerns it is working around.
Still, Adkins said there have been very few students at the CCCTC who have had to be reminded to put the masks on and he believes the leadership throughout this has helped make that possible. Corbisello pointed to the job the school nurse, Kristin Ours, and principal Jordan Williams have done in helping to prevent the spread of the virus in the school.
Board member Mike Ellyson asked if the county health department tells them to shut down would they and both Adkins and Corbisello quickly answered yes. Corbisello then added the county health department usually makes recommendations.
Adult education director Kelly Darney said the adult nursing students just finished their clinicals working with sick patients and in nursing homes. Those in nursing homes were being tested every week. With the holidays here and no clinicals scheduled until Jan. 4, Darney said the decision was made to do only virtual learning until then. While they will still be doing their classwork and joining their teachers for lectures online, it will allow the nursing students to also spend the holidays with their families with less concerns.
The next meeting of the CCCTC board will be at 7 p.m., Dec. 15 and the board already announced it will move it to remote by Zoom.
djohnson@mojonews.com