Cheney Schools Stay Open Amidst Omicron Surge

CHENEY – School districts around the nation are once again debating about closing down amidst the latest surge of the newest Coronavirus variant deemed colloquially as omicron. Superintendent Rob Roettger released a statement saying that despite many other districts electing to shut down, Cheney would stay open while continuing to implement health and safety protocols to mitigate the spread of the highly contagious variant.

Roettger said the school district works closely with the Spokane County Health District and state officials to decide if the school would stay open during the Omicron surge. Roettger said everyone’s goals seem to be in line with keeping the schools open so it just comes down to keeping up with the health and safety practices put in place to mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus during the school year.

These mitigation practices include all of the same things that have kept Cheney’s public schools open all fall – social distancing, masking up, and surveillance testing or student athletics. Surveillance testing is a form of preemptive testing several times a week for student athletes who are regularly in close contact with teammates and opponents. This is likely as far as the testing protocols will go because securing tests to test everyone at mass probably isn’t possible and there might be concern with parents wondering why their kids are being tested without showing symptoms, Superintendent Roettger said.

Many districts are closing because they have so many staff members calling out sick with Coronavirus and other illnesses. While some districts would prefer to stay open, their staff has been hit to hard to keep schools open in a safe and constructive manner.

Other districts are simply closing for days or even weeks to curb the spread of the disease even though many leading educators and health officials have stated that schools are not a major contributor to the spread of the Coronavirus during the pandemic. Brandon Guthrie is an epidemiologist at the University of Washington and has said that while there are many unknowns about how omicron acts in schools it’s fairly certain to say that schools have never “been a major driver of transmission.”

This is a major reason why education and health care officials around the world seem to be almost completely in a unanimous lockstep on the subject of keeping schools open. In-person learning has many benefits that stretch far beyond reading retention and writing prompts. First of all, many parents rely on schools to keep their children safe while they’re at work and cannot afford full time childcare when schools close down. Schools also feed children and when some kids don’t go to school, they don’t get to eat that day.

There’s also the issues of the emotional and psychological damage kids suffer from when they’re isolated from their friends during some of the most important and influential learning periods of their lives. Shutting down schools can seriously hinder the psychological developmental periods of a child’s life that are critical for them in becoming functioning articulate members of society. “add quote from rob here”

According to the Unite Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) there are around 300 million students around the world dealing with partial or full school closures. According to UNESCO and UNICEF, another origination benefiting maligned children, it’s crucial to the emotional and physical safety of children that the schools stay open and in-person learning continues. It’s educators and legislators’ jobs to keep adapting to the situation and figuring out ways to keep kids in school to prevent the catastrophic domino effect that widespread closures have on the lives of children. Superintendent Roettger reiterated in an email to parents this past weekend that he intends to keep the schools open safely for in-person learning while the omicron variant takes it course.