SPRINGFIELD â Like many parents in the summer of 2020, Donna Skelton was curious as to how her local school district, Ball-Chatham, would navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic in the fall.
She and her husband Terry are working parents of two children, 10-year-old Adrianne and 8-year-old Addison. After spending the spring of 2020 working through the district s online learning, she awaited the plan for returning kids full-time to the classroom. Chatham was looking at several different things, Skelton said. They weren t set on something, it kept changing (and) everybody was trying to figure out something that worked.
Eventually, the Ball-Chatham School Board decided to begin the 2020-21 school year with a hybrid model where students would attend in-person for half the day on certain days. However, the Skelton children would still have had to do some virtual learning, an option that wasn t the best for the family.
Northland Covid-19 testing sites overwhelmed, public anxiety and workforce shortage to blame
25 Jan, 2021 04:00 PM
8 minutes to read
Valeria, Mila, and Lance Gilmore were one of many whānau trying to keep cool as hundreds of cars lined up at the Ruakākā testing station yesterday. Photo / Tania Whyte
Northern Advocate
Northlanders were forced to wait hours at Covid-19 testing sites across Whangārei and Mangawhai as thousands swarmed to get tested yesterday.
Even with two extra testing stations at Mangawhai Domain and Pohe Island in Whangārei, anxious Northlanders had no choice but to withstand almost 30C heat as they waited in their cars.