A little more than 72 hours before students are staff are scheduled to return to in-person learning, Pasadena City College faculty members are asking the school to go remote for the entire semester — or at least extend online learning for a while longer.
Colleges throughout Los Angeles County are grappling with the decision of whether or not to return to campus or stay remote amid the enduring winter coronavirus surge.
Meanwhile, other schools are still weeks away from welcoming students back to campus. Cerritos College recently announced in-person classes would not resume until Monday, March 7. For Whittier College, it’s Feb. 21. California State University, Northridge is expected to resume in-person instruction on Monday, Feb. 14.
After announcing earlier this month that the first two weeks of the spring semester would go online, PCC is scheduled to welcome a majority of students back to campus for the first time in two years on Monday, Jan. 24.
A group of educators returned to campus on Thursday, Jan. 20 — not to teach, but protest the resumption of on-campus learning so soon.
Much like the start of the academic year last August, the debate to return to class has sparked a firestorm of conversation focusing on student safety, the working conditions of staff and the effectiveness of online learning.
The pleas of PCC educators have fallen on deaf ears, according to a group of nearly three dozen demonstrators, who united with students and residents at the college on Thursday.
“We’re here to call for a safe return to work,” said Mary-Ellen Crook, vice president of the the teachers’ union, the Pasadena City College Faculty Association. “We’re ready to go back but we are ready to go back when it is safe for the faculty, for the students and, really, for the whole community.”
School leaders believe they’ve gone above and beyond the precautions needed for a safe return, including upgrading ventilation systems, establishing new sanitization processes and working closely with public health officials.
Full vaccination against COVID-19, with limited exceptions, is required for all students, faculty, and staff to return to campus, officials said. As of Jan. 4, nearly 20,000 PCC students and employees have been verified as fully vaccinated, officials said.
Also, in-person class sizes have been reduced by half to ensure adequate distancing and reduce the chances of crowding. The college is also limiting the number of students and courses offered to attempt to tame the spread of COVID-19.
“For the Spring 2022 semester, which started Jan. 10, roughly 58 percent of courses are offered face-to-face; the remainder are hybrid or online-only classes,” the release states.
Protesters, however, maintained on Thursday that despite those measures, it was still too soon to return. The horns of cars, garbage trucks and bicycles rang in the distance while Crook detailed how the college previously agreed to take a two week delay to weather the worst of COVID’s omicron storm.
“And at that time the case rates, the hospitalizations and the death rates were all lower.” Crook said, noting a recent survey conducted by the Pasadena City College Faculty Association revealed nearly 80% of those polled would like to extend the period of remote instruction.
“Our students take public transportation. They come from all over L.A. County. They have family members who are working,” Crook said. “And we feel that having 20,000 people here right now is not going to be safe.”
“We should bear down and wait at least a couple more weeks to see where the trending data goes,” said biology major Caressa Wong.
“All of us have family members who are at higher risk for complications,” Wong added. “I don’t think anybody really wants to get sick. And with the high case count at the moment, a lot of students and a lot of faculty just don’t feel like it’s the right time to go back.“
She also encouraged students to join “the united front.”
The topic arose during a board of trustees meeting on Wednesday, offering insight into trustees’ reasoning.
“Everybody has their own unique circumstances that they have to deal with,” Trustee Jim Osterling said, acknowledging he had received many letters from students, faculty, and staff about the return to on-campus operations. “I want to commend our administration for spending strategically so that we can return to campus as safely as possible.”
Student Trustee David Ramirez, whose two years on the board have almost entirely been conducted via teleconference, echoed the time was right to come back to campus.
Around the region
Schools across L.A. County will face similar decisions in the weeks ahead.
Whittier College, which recorded almost 100 cases of COVID within the college community since the end of the fall semester, opted to start the first three weeks of the spring semester with remote learning, returning Feb. 21.
“The intention is to welcome back our community in phases to allow for required testing, quarantine and monitoring periods, and new vaccination requirements,” according to school officials.
Long Beach City College still intends to remain in-person when the spring semester starts on Monday, Feb. 7, according to school leaders.
Doreen J Clay, a spokesperson for Pierce College in Woodland Hills, said the spring semester at Pierce starts on Feb. 7 and they will offer in-person, online and hybrid classes.
“We are certainly learning that flexibility is the key when serving our students these days at Pierce College, so we will offer three learning modes,” Clay said. “We are planning to have a good deal of in-person classes, as well as many 100% online classes, and also about 80 hybrid classes.”
However, there’s a unique twist, Clay added. “We have come up with a new way to serve our students at Pierce and we call it Dual Delivery. We are the only ones in our district using this technology, The Meeting Owl, which allows a student to take the same class either in person or online.”
Of course, Clay noted, school leadership is staying abreast of the changing situation.
“We had hoped to have more on-campus classes,” Clay said, “but have pulled back somewhat in the face of the continuing pandemic.”
Staff writers Olga Grigoryants, Mike Sprague and Pierce Singgih contributed to this report.