Lawton school chief wants to keep in-person learning as an option

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  • School districts try to keep in-person learning as an option.
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LAWTON – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stunned many last week when the head of the organization announced that in-person learning for students should continue despite the surging COVID-19 infection rates across the nation.

According to CDC Director Robert Redfield, the data showed schools are not the problem.

“The infections that we’ve identified in schools when they’ve been evaluated were not acquired in schools. They were actually acquired in the community and in the household,” said Redfield. “The truth is, for kids K-12, one of the safest places they can be, from our perspective, is to remain in school, and it’s really important that following the data, making sure we don’t make emotional decisions about what to close and what not to close.”

As school districts around the country had already begun moving to full virtual learning, Redfield’s proclamation caught some superintendents off guard.

However, before the CDC had made its announcement, Kevin Hime, the Superintendent for Lawton Public Schools, had already stated that he planned to keep in-person learning as an option for students in the district.

But what Redfield did do was provide even more backing that he had made the right decision.

“The rumors started, and I was getting a little nervous with hospital beds being full and stuff,” Hime said. “But I was glad to get reassured by them. As long as that’s what we’re getting from the CDC and the Health Department, and the health experts are telling us to stay in school we’re going to follow the health experts.”

LPS currently offers students the option of in-person learning at school or distance learning.

Nationally, from Nov. 9 to Nov. 20, the total number of positive COVID-19 cases jumped from 10 million to 12 million. Every state has been affected by this current surge.

This caused school districts to suspend in-person learning and go to full distance learning. That includes those in Oklahoma such as Oklahoma City, Mustang, Yukon,

Edmond and Enid. Because not all school districts are on the same page in terms of how to proceed, Hime said it makes these types of decisions tougher. He pointed out that when people see that one school is out, they think they shouldn’t be in school either.

But Hime has stuck by the information he had been getting from the outset. And it was telling him it’s best to keep students at school.

“That’s what we were hearing from the health experts,” Hime said. “Not as high as the CDC, but the people we talked to in that industry said, ‘Keep our kids in school.’”

Hime pointed to the job the LPS faculty and staff members have done during the first semester as proof of the district’s ability to keep the environment safe for students.

“For the most part, our staff members have done a tremendous job across the district to meet the needs of our students and parents,” Hime stated. As with “those with pre-existing conditions, we’re working hard to give them an education in a virtual manner. And those who really need to be at school every day and need the face-to-face interaction, we’re working hard to make that as safe as possible.”

However, Hime does have concerns about what is going to happen when the students return from the Thanksgiving holiday break next week. Even though national and local health officials have warned citizens that Thanksgiving gatherings should be limited to immediate family members, Hime realizes not everyone will follow those precautions and COVID-19 has a chance to spread even more. Because of that, Hime wants to reinforce the guidelines that have been in effect since the early days of the pandemic.

“Our number one goal is to educate our parents and our staff to change their thought process,” Hime said. “If you’re not feeling 100 percent, don’t come to work or don’t come to school.”

According to Hime, the biggest issue he has dealt with are what rumors that make their way around the district.

“We had (outbreaks) but if you look at the COVID summary page on the website, you will see that no one site ever just got overwhelmed,” Hime said. “The rumors of them hurt us as much, because if a student or a teacher-tested positive, and then another eight or 10 were quarantined, it came out that we have 10 people positive at this building.”

To battle the “rumor mill,” Hime says he will continue to point parents toward the LPS website, which he says keeps up-to-date stats and information on COVID-19 throughout the district.

“We put that page on our website and most people know it now,” Himes said. “Obviously, some people don’t trust it, but I think the longer we go, the more people are going to realize we’re using the data from the Health Department to update that page.”