Linda Puga
campus editor

With the ongoing quarantine lockdown we’ve been under since March, the beginning of the fall semester required excessive planning and strategizing with how school would continue and how to adequately meet the demands of elementary to college students throughout the country. 

Though it is a community college, TCC opted for total safety precautions and is open only to a limited and certain extent. Universities such as Texas Christian University and Texas Wesleyan have on-campus housing offered to students for the semester. Also, socially distant in-person classes are offered, as well as a choice for hybrid classes as an in-between option. 

A number of high schools in the city of Fort Worth didn’t set foot on their respective campuses, even with original plans to start online for a few weeks then transition to an in-person experience. 

After a spike in COVID cases, it was imperative that schools didn’t make the switch after the start of the semester.

For schools in the district such as highly populated middle and high schools, regulating precautions such as how to navigate lunch schedules and passing periods where students crowd through the hallways and staircases simultaneously would not have worked out well. 

Even with masks and precautions, one student catching COVID would automatically result in that system being shut down one class at a time. 

There were plenty of schools in the country that were given the choice of being either in-person or online. 

Because of technology, even with hybrid learning and a new system, students are able to stay connected with their instructors. 

The independent school districts in our state did the students and staff a favor by mandating their students to not return to school weeks after the start of the school year. 

And even though many students are beyond tired of the online school system, safety-wise this is the best route for us to be in to prevent an additional spread of the virus for the near future.