CHANDLER, AZ — As students make their way back to in-school learning, the risk of being exposed to COVID-19 also grows.
"For both of my daughters, someone is going to get exposed to COVID sooner rather than later, for sure," says Andrea Ramsey, a mother of two Chandler Unified School District students in grades 7-12.
Students who opted for in-person learning in CUSD and come in close contact with a known positive student or teacher are being told they need to quarantine for 14 days at home. So far, the district health director says 482 students across the district of more than 40,000 have been quarantined.
"I got a call last Wednesday I needed to come pick her up and that she had had extended exposure to someone who had tested positive, " said Amanda Cocking. Her seventh grader's exposure meant learning would have to happen at home, or so she thought.
"And then very quickly we realized, okay great, she has access to her assignments but she has no access to the instruction so she knows how to do her work. We kept saying, where is her instruction, where is her instruction?" says Cocking.
Chandler Unified students who opted for in-person learning during the pandemic began the school year virtually and according to both Cocking and Ramsey, a virtual option such as meeting on a Zoom call should be a feasible option. So far, they haven't received a reason as to why virtual is not being contemplated.
"Given the amount of technology that we have and that we have access to at CUSD, I think we can find real viable solutions real quickly," said Ramsey.
"We are parents who want to partner with the school. My husband is a teacher, we have friends who are teachers and they are saying, 'I've got kids gone, there's no plan, we don't know what to do,'" said Cocking.
A school district spokesman tells ABC15 in part, "we are actively researching options to provide interim engagement opportunities....(and) are in the process of solidifying the logistics to minimize the loss of instruction during quarantine.
"Asking families to have weeks and weeks of no in-person instruction is not a viable solution," added Ramsey.
