"Extended Spring Break"

Towards the middle of the week of March 9th, people started talking about the possibility of schools closing. The kids all joked about it initially. I don't think anyone really felt like the threat of the virus was a personal concern. It was just something happening somewhere else. Even so, the staff started to develop contingency plans just in case it happened. We were told it wasn't a matter of "if" we would close, but "when". And for how long? The governor announced at his press conference on March 12 that all Ohio schools would close for "an extended spring break" of 3 weeks beginning the following Monday. With set dates, our school began to plan in earnest. The announcement from the governor came on Thursday, the next day, Friday would be our last day in the building together for awhile.

Our school decided to give students Monday & Tuesday off so the teachers could work on developing their online classrooms. Remote learning was scheduled to begin on Wednesday, March 18. The teachers had to reinvent ways to teach and remain connected with their students. All in a couple days.

The governor also made provisions for schools to continue providing meals for students even though learning was to be done remotely. With his provisions, schools are able to provide meals for ALL students, not just those students who qualify for free meals. There are forms and paperwork to be completed and hopefully everything will be reimbursed eventually. For now, our school is feeding students and footing the bill to do so. We started providing breakfasts and lunches to students when the remote learning began on Wednesday.

Our food service department split into shifts to cover the days without all of us being together at once. Our concern is that if one person has to be quarantined, the whole program could be shut down. We have a lot of community organizations who are trying to help provide food, but the bulk of the responsibility rests with the school district. 

We distributed meals from 2 locations on Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday. The amount we handed out almost doubled from Wednesday to Friday. There were a few people who stopped to pick up meals simply because they wanted to get out of the house, some were probably looking for a no-hassle meal for the kids (which I totally appreciate!), and there were some who genuinely needed the food. Not necessarily because of the quarantine, but because they have a hard time providing food for their children on a regular basis and the need was still there.




The guidelines for how many people should be together and how close you should be to one another have continued to change, and we have tried to follow the rules. It is difficult to keep those things in mind when your main thought is just feeding as many people as you can in a 2 hour window, though. Hopefully we have done enough to keep our staff and the people we are feeding safe.

We are on spring break this coming week, so the community organizations will be taking over for a week. As long as we are still allowed, we will be back at it on March 30. If this quarantine goes on for very long, I know the numbers of families picking up food will continue to increase. I hope we're able to continue meeting their needs.