MARIETTA, Pa. — Many families are struggling to adapt to changing school schedules as spikes of positive COVID-19 cases have forced several Central Pennsylvania schools to temporarily close.
Just more than two weeks into the school year, Donegal Intermediate School in Lancaster County wrote on their website Sept. 12 that two individuals in the school community had tested positive for coronavirus, one of whom had been present in “multiple locations throughout the building.” In response, the school closed its building and announced all classes would be conducted virtually through Sept. 20.
“I’ve just been stressed out since I found out that the school was closing,” said Liz Marie Kreider, who has a daughter in fourth grade at the school, and another child starting preschool in the district. “Because we work full time and we really depended on the school. We weren’t 100 percent prepared for something like this happening so soon, so it definitely caught us off guard.”
Kreider said she’s very worried about providing childcare for her daughter. She can’t take time off her job at a security company to stay home.
“It’s rough and now it’s definitely jeopardizing my job to the point that I don’t even know if I’ll have a job after this,” Kreider said. “There’s no one there to understand. It’s tough because my district boss is like, I don’t want to fire you. And I’m like, my hands are tied. I have no one here. I have no family here. And my kids come first. I can’t leave a 9-year-old home alone.”
At least three other area schools have announced temporary closures this month. Conestoga Valley High School in Lancaster County and Trimmer Elementary School in York County are both closed through Sept. 21, and Jackson K-8 School in York County is closed through Sept. 24.
“This exact scenario is exactly why [my kids] chose to do the virtual academy,” said Bethany Watts, whose children in sixth and ninth grades both decided to attend Donegal School District’s online academy. “They didn’t want the interruption to their education experience. We listened to what our kids had to say. At their age they’re old enough to have a say in what they want to do in their education.”
Watts said her children would rather see their friends than have to stay at home, but that a steady routine was more important to them.
“I think for some kids the in-person is definitely better, but for some kids the interruption to that is too much for them to handle,” she said.
Other parents said even with temporary closures, having some in-person classes helped lower their kids’ stress levels.
“During the shutdown [last spring] I did see just a sadness, an uncertainty,” said Tara Tomlinson, whose two children in third and sixth grade attend a hybrid program in the Camp Hill School District.
But for the time being, she said, the only certainty is uncertainty.
“My thought so far has just been to take it one day at a time, because I don’t know, I don’t really have a backup,” Tomlinson said. “I think a lot of parents are in that situation.”