YELLOW LIGHT: Slow the Spread

Written by Ady Carter | 11/3/20

Beginning November 9th, Cranberry Area Junior-Senior High School is converting to phase yellow.

The transition was decided by the superintendents of Venango County Schools, Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Department of Education, School Administrators, as well as the School Nurse at 10am Monday morning after a strong recommendation for the change.

The district was at a low number of cases for ten weeks before becoming moderate the last two, forcing the school to transition within that period to adjust to the threat.

Every phase the school has created is to adhere to the COVID-19 Transmission Model that has the levels of low, moderate, and substantial. The level is determined by the amount of people being affected by the virus in the high school, elementary school, and any within our zip code.

CHS has decided to change their way of educating students to a hybrid form of a class schedule so as to limit the number of cases by decreasing possible exposure.

There are two groups of students who will alternate between days depending on which group they are placed in.

Group A will come to school on days Monday and Wednesday, while Group B will attend Tuesday and Thursday. The days students are not in the school building, they are to be learning and completing coursework. Then, on Friday, all students will remain at home for online instruction.

When in the school building, everyone’s schedule will also change from blocks to 8 periods a day.

As of now, it is planned that students will have to do attendance by answering a question on Google Classroom before 10am. What and how teachers assign work is left up to their discretion.

Depending on the sheer number of cases and possibilities, by November 16th, Cranberry will make an important decision to either stay in the hybrid model or go full cyber.

This instance does not only affect the students but the administrators and staff as well as parents.

Showing his compassion to student situations but also acknowledging the danger that the virus poses to every single person, Cranberry’s principal, Ritt Smith, stated, “I would prefer being in face-to-face instruction. I understand that we have had an increase in the number of positive COVID -19 cases and it is important to keep our students, staff, and community as safe as possible.”

The transition will ultimately benefit the entire community in decreasing the amount of cases of people contracting COVID-19 and spreading the virus making this decision to go hybrid a noble one.