All Yakima District Schools Will Switch to Remote Learning the Week of Jan 18-24
It was bound to happen that the Yakima School District would make the announcement to revert to remote school learning for the upcoming week.
Earlier this week, three elementary schools closed down their in-person schooling services due to a huge increase of illnesses and staff shortages. Even Wapato schools jumped into the same method, as Yakima Herald reported.
Yakima Schools Superintendent Dr. Trevor Greene sent out an announcement to parents and guardians that the staff shortages have created such an impact on in-person learning that he is making the executive decision for all schools in the district to go remote. This is made possible due to a grant provided to Yakima School District to equip each enrolled primary and secondary student with a Chromebook laptop for remote learning opportunities with Google Classrooms.
The Omnicron variant is wrecking havoc on many students and faculty in the city, and Superintendent Greene in his statement said that he anticipates upcoming further staff shortages among bus drivers, educators, food service workers, and school nurses. Par for the course due to the influx of new COVID-19 cases and quarantines.
Students in need of school lunches are still able to swing by and pick them up from area schools but they will need to order them online first. All Yakima School District middle school extracurricular activities will be halted during the remote learning days, but high school athletic events/activities will still go on as scheduled.
If you have a student enrolled in YSD's special education in-person courses those will continue also.
Students enrolled at YV-Tech will be expected to report to in-person classes but there will be no school bus services provided thru the 24th.
It is important to note that to allow high school students to take their final exams, Superintendent Greene has shifted the end of the YSD semester to January 28th, which is a week later than scheduled.