Several Merced County high schools resume in-person classes, as COVID vaccinations ramp up
Students in the 10-campus Merced Union High School District returned to in-person classes Monday, three months after the district closed classrooms in lieu of distance (online) learning.
The return to in person classes amid the ongoing COVID pandemic is anything but business as usual, however. The district’s schools are operating on a hybrid class schedule where students alternate between in-person and distance learning on various days during the week.
Parents who are not yet comfortable sending their kids back to school have the option of continuing with distance learning only.
MUHSD estimates about 40 to 50 percent of its students showed up for in-person classes Monday. That statistic isn’t surprising, as it mirrors the 45.6% of parents who answered a district questionnaire, saying they would send their students back for in-person classes.
“There’s a lot of excitement on our campuses today,” MUHSD Superintendent Alan Peterson said Monday.
Peterson spoke to the Sun-Star while at El Capitan High, where a press conference was held Monday announcing a new partnership between UC Merced and MUHSD, guaranteeing admission for graduating seniors who meet certain academic standards.
“I was at Merced High before I came here (to the press conference) and I mean students are happy to be here, faculty are happy to be back,” Peterson said. “We’re hoping that the confidence continues to build in the community as more and more folks get vaccinated.”
The reopening of classrooms in the Merced Union High School District comes amid increased efforts to vaccinate more county residents. Earlier this month, Merced County public health officials gave the go-ahead for teachers to get vaccinated.
Peterson said thus far around 60 percent of teachers and administrators in MUSHD have been fully vaccinated. “Hopefully those numbers will push up farther and farther as we inch closer to Easter break and beyond,” he said.
Courtney Behn, a senior at El Capitan High, told the Sun-Star she only has two classes this semester and she’s sticking with online learning for now.
“So I chose to stay online, but I have two younger siblings who are sophomores here and they’re going back and I know they’re really looking forward to it,” she said.
Behn, who also plays basketball for El Capitan, said she is very happy about the return of high school sports.
“Fortunately for me I am having basketball practices so that’s kind of my sense of normalcy being able to come to the gym everyday and practice,” she said. “It kind of takes my mind off of the fact that, learning isn’t going how you planned it to”
Other K-12 school districts doing hybrid learning in Merced County include Hilmar Unified, Dos-Palos Oro-Loma Joint School District and Le Grand Union High School District.
Los Banos Unified kicked off hybrid learning Monday for second to sixth grades, and pre-kindergarten to first grade returned to campus March 8. The district’s seventh to 12th grades are expected to return middle to late April.
In Merced City School District, preschoolers and Merced School Youth Enrichment students (childcare for children ages 5-12), returned to a hybrid mode of learning Feb. 22. Kindergarten through 2nd grade went back to a hybrid model March 1 and grades 3-6 returned on Monday.
The return to in-person classes for seventh and eighth graders remains questionable. The earliest those students can move to a hybrid model is March 29, which depends on whether the county will enter the red tier of the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy four-tier reopening system.
Delhi Unified School District announced on Facebook that they will also open up their campuses to hybrid learning, starting March 22. Planada Elementary School District will also open up their campuses for hybrid learning March 22.
This story was originally published March 15, 2021 at 5:25 PM.