By Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com


It will be 2021 before high school students in Livingston County can return to their classrooms.

It was announced by Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Nov. 15th that the Michigan Dept. of Health and Human Services was imposing a partial shutdown — including a “pause” in grades 9-12 and college classroom learning — from Nov. 18th through Dec. 8th. However, the initial three-week pause was later extended another 12 days, through Dec. 20th.

The order was issued because of the increasing number of positive COVID-19 cases, particularly in high schools, where — due to the large volume of students — social distancing and other measures are almost impossible to enforce. The order also prohibits bars and restaurants from serving customers inside and has other restrictions.

According to the common calendar of K-12 school districts in the Livingston Educational Services Agency (LESA) — the county’s Intermediate School District - the winter break takes place from Dec. 21st to Jan. 4th. Since the latest order out of Lansing affects only high schools, grades junior kindergarten through 8 in all Livingston County districts - Brighton, Howell, Hartland, Pinckney and Fowlerville - have continued in the classroom. This excludes Wednesdays in Brighton and Fridays in Pinckney, Hartland and Fowlerville, which are all online. In addition, all five districts in the county have 100% online program options for students who are enrolled in them. Unlike the other four districts in the county, Howell does not have a virtual day, with Monday through Friday all in the classroom, other than for students enrolled in the virtual program.

It’s currently anybody’s guess as to what will happen between now and Jan. 4th, according to Brighton High School Principal Gavin Johnson. He tells WHMI, “We wait patiently for the next order/extension and hope that information comes soon enough where we can plan effectively to hopefully see our students back in our hallways as soon as possible.” Since the executive order ends on the 20th, and winter break starts the very next day, students will not be going back to school until after the New Year’s holiday.

After the 12-day extension, the Dept. of Health and Human Services says it has identified "three key metrics that will be used in determining whether to slowly reopen at the end of the 12 days.“ Specifically, the state dept. will be looking closely at the percentage of hospital beds with COVID patients, the number of COVID-19 cases and the positivity rate. With improvements in those numbers in context, (the department) will carefully reopen, with in-person learning at high schools first.

Like Brighton, in Howell, junior kindergarten through 8th grade students are in person, with only the high school doing remote learning. And in Howell, High School students won’t be back in the classroom until after the holidays at the earliest due to the executive order extending through the 20th. Howell Schools Public Relations Director Tom Gould says the state health dept. could issue another directive extending at-home learning for high school students. However, he says, “As it is now, Howell High School will go back to school on Jan. 4th.”

Pinckney Superintendent Rick Todd said, in his words, “All the school districts in Livingston County have done a great job in working through this pandemic. We’re doing the best we can in educating our students." Todd says his district was “prepared for going remote and have been studying this and practicing for it beginning in August.”

In Fowlerville, Assistant Superintendent Tim Dowker says students in grades pre-K-through-8 have been continuing with face-to-face learning. Dowker says it’s been “a tough time, especially for teachers.” Dowker says the decision was made to have Fowlerville’s regular teachers also teach the online programs, rather than using substitute teachers, so there would be no problem with being on the same page, and to ensure that the subject material and the teaching method is the same for both. The downside, Dowker says, is that greatly increases the teachers’ workload and the amount of stress on them, in “trying to meet everyone’s need and being tasked with providing a meaningful, productive education while keeping students safe.”

Either way, all of the local districts will wait and see what the New Year brings and if that will include high school students back in the classrooms.

File Photo - Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press