Clarenceville superintendent battles cancer during pandemic school year
March 13, 2020, began what would become the most stressful schooling season of Paul Shepich s 38-year career.
After the initial closing in the COVID-19 pandemic s beginning days, Clarenceville Public Schools, along with school districts across Michigan, grappled with how and when to return to in-person schooling. Shepich and other superintendents continue to face a dilemma of how to best educate students while also keeping students and staff as safe as possible.
Not to mention, reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic is something most everybody has an opinion on. Locally, students, parents and staff have not been shy in sharing those opinions with schools districts.
The answer isn’t simple or singular.
All schools have state permission to return to in-person learning after MDHHS’s order closing Michigan’s high schools expired Dec. 20.
Yet individual districts have their own criteria for returning. Local public school districts vary in how they are teaching students in the 2020-21 school year.
Some metro Detroit school districts have offered classroom instruction virtually for the entire school year. Many other districts have offered some sort of face-to-face learning model, at least for some students.
It s been a rollercoaster for educators, support staff and families alike as COVID-19 cases in ebb and flow in Michigan, prompting ever-changing decisions from local school boards and the state health department allowing or prohibiting in-person learning, sports and more.