Each of the 450 students and their faculty members will have their temperatures taken daily using new technology at three different entrances into Banes Hall when school begins tomorrow morning at The Linsly School.
Masks will be worn, and classes will be socially distanced whether they are inside or outside, and hand-sanitizing stations are scattered throughout the school. Plus, daily health surveys will be compiled to record the possible symptoms.
It’s all part the Safe & Together Plan adopted and implemented at The Linsly School for the beginning of the 2020-2021 academic year, according to Head of School Justin Zimmerman.
“I’m a big believer in what we do here, and we are a relationship-based institution. It’s those connections that help form those relationships that help us become better teachers,” he explained. “It allows us to reach our students in deeper and more meaningful ways and to assist in their development.
“Because of that, we feel in-person learning is best suited for us to accomplish the goals that are important to our mission here as a school and as an institution,” Zimmerman continued. “That is why we have taken many steps to make sure we are being as safe as we can as this pandemic continues across the world.”
Multiple Learning Platforms
For the 400-plus pupils who will attend in-person classes at Linsly, the daily itinerary will be notably different from what it was when they attended prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Zimmerman expects.
“Besides all of the precautions we have put into place, the biggest difference that our students will notice is the change to our daily schedule,” Zimmerman said. “Our classes will not start until 9 a.m., there will only be four 70-minute periods per day instead of eight, and our class sizes will be even smaller than they normally are.
“We will also be using virtual platforms for school meetings and for some other activities, and the lunch periods will be very different, too, because we will not be gathering in the cafetorium,” he explained. “Instead, our students will have lunch with their advisory groups, and there also have been some temporary modifications made to the dress code because of COVID-19.”
For the two dozen international students who have remained home in Europe and in the Far East, and the eight local families who have opted for home-based learning, Linsly’s enhanced virtual platform will be utilized daily.
“I feel our faculty will be working much harder this year, and one reason for that is because we’ve added extra sections to get our class numbers down,” Zimmerman said. “We will only have about 10 students in a classroom at one time, and because of the added sections, our teachers will be teaching the material more than usual.
“In addition to that, many of our faculty also will have students learning virtually, so our teachers will be available beginning at 7:30 a.m. to work with those students remotely,” the head of school reported. “But our faculty members know what is at stake, and they all have really worked hard all summer to be sure they are prepared for this school year.”
That ‘What If?’ Question
Despite all of the measures taken in the name of safety, Linsly’s Head of School also needed to guide his faculty and staff members this summer in preparation for a positive COVID-19 test.
Parents, of course, have been asked to keep their children home if they are exhibiting one or two of the many symptoms connected to the coronavirus, and the same goes for all faculty and staff members.
“We will be paying a lot of attention to any possible symptoms, and our student body and their parents know how important that is for the entire community here,” Zimmerman said. “We do have plans in place in case we record positive tests, and that includes a hybrid model that will reduce our capacity even more, and we also have a plan to pivot to a totally virtual way of learning just as we did last March.
“Despite some of the measures we have taken, the curriculum and the pacing of learning will be very similar to what it has always been here,” he said. “It is going to be different than what our alums remember from their years here, but our faculty is prepared to for whatever model we have to utilize during the course of the school year.”
The Linsly football team recorded a 31-16 victory in its season opener against Martins Ferry, and this week the Cadets are preparing to travel to Harding Stadium in Steubenville to take on the Big Red.
Steubenville is 2-0 following a 28-7 win over Dover in which they rushed the football for 239 years.
“Athletics is something that we have to take on a week-by-week basis, and so far that has gone really well,” Zimmerman explained. “We have had our athletes on campus for conditioning and preparing for their seasons, and that includes residential boarding students who had to go through a quarantine and testing before they arrived, and then we re-tested them once they did arrive on our campus.
“So far, we have not experienced any issues, but it really is something that we are tracking every day while following all of the guidelines and protocols that have been pushed out,” he said. “I do worry about exposure during athletic activities because, while we can do a lot of precautionary things in the school building to socially distance and protect people, you can’t do that on a football field or a soccer field or a gymnasium for volleyball.”
