By Sharon Biju

The school board officially decided to first open up hybrid learning to classrooms earlier in the year, marking March 3, 2021 the official start date. According to Loudoun Times, over 29,000 students in Loudoun County are enrolled in hybrid learning and participate in physical synchronous classrooms one or two days a week, while learning virtually or asynchronous the remainder of the week. After being approved by the Center for Disease Control, the  Loudoun County Public School system  was granted permission to return back to a four day, in-person learning week for hybrid students, effective April 20, 2021. 

This sounds great on paper, but in reality, opening schools full time for the students comes with more risks. Initially, classes for hybrid students were divided into smaller pairs since the hybrid students were split into Tuesday and Wednesday or Thursday and Friday. However, since now all students have returned to school all together, there will be a noticeable difference in the numbers of students entering the building and in classes. In one of my classes, after the April 20th return,  the number of students increased from nine to 17.  This high number is an outlier, but the risk is still real.  The CDC has allowed for three feet of distancing between each student, so changes with the social distancing requirements means  more students will now be seated more closely to one another.  Taking individual classes out of the equation, there is still now more than two times the risk in classes and hallways. 

All these changes seem too fast too soon.  The vaccine isn’t available for students under the age of 16 under until later in the month of April.  Most parents haven’t been able to receive the vaccine either.  Vaccine availability is opening up, but this doesn’t mean everyone’s parents and eligible students are going to be vaccinated before it’s too late. This all might sound dramatic, but highlights why it is important keep awareness to the risk and try your best to engage in social distancing and maintain hygiene-washing hands, avoiding touching too many objects and surfaces- while in the school building to protect yourself, those around you, and prevent the spread of COVID.