Confidence growing among parents, Catholic high schools in New Orleans push full-time classes

When St. Mary’s Dominican High School’s roughly 870 students started school on a hybrid model in August, Anne Raymond wondered how it would work for her daughter Julia Fluellen, a junior. Rather than going through the normal high school experience, Julia would be in a classroom just a couple of days per week, spending the other days logging on to online lessons from home.

But Raymond found herself pleased with the program and her daughter’s response.

“I’ve was impressed at her diligence on the video days,” she said. The school, she said, managed it well and were open and communicative with parents.

Nevertheless, when Dominican brought students back to its New Orleans campus full time on Oct. 5, Raymond applauded the decision.

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“I’m really happy they are moving in this direction,” she said. “High school is much more about the whole experience and not just reading books and doing assignments.”

Dominican’s move highlights a growing trend among larger private schools to bring students back full-time, even as the larger public school districts across the area stick to hybrid or distance learning models for their older students. Some school administrators say also reflects a growing of comfort among school communities with the precautions put in place during the coronavirus pandemic, such as masks and social distancing. 

Jesuit High School, with roughly 1,300 students, and Brother Martin High School, with around 1,100, will resume full-time class at their New Orleans campuses beginning Monday.

Medical experts, parents and teachers have been divided about how prudent it is to bring students back full-time given the ongoing pandemic. Having students in classrooms increases the risk of infection. But having them learn at home has its drawbacks as well, ranging from the lack of reliable computer equipment to the absence of social interaction among peers.

Statewide, COVID cases in schools are rising, with 1,316 cases reported among students and faculty/staff. In the region that includes Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes, cases are rising at a lower rate. There were 68 student cases and 48 faculty and staff cases as of Oct. 7.

However, echoing some other private school leaders, Jesuit President John Brown said students’ social and emotional health are factors that must be weighed alongside the risk of infection. Jesuit’s roughly 1,300 students have been on thhe New Orleans campus part-time under hybrid schedules, but Brown said the school has pushed for having them return to classrooms full-time “because the psychological, academic, and social well-being of our students is best pursued in person.”

The numbers of COVID cases at many private and Catholic schools weren’t available. Brown declined to say how many cases Jesuit has had, but pointed out that less than 0.3% of Jesuit’s students, faculty and staff had self-reported positive cases at any time. At the 1,200-student Mount Carmel Academy in New Orleans, meanwhile, there have been five cases since the school began full-time classes Aug. 20, principal Beth Ann Simno said.

Across the United States, the spread of coronavirus in schools is lower than had been expected

Not that all large New Orleans Catholic schools have immediate plans to return full-time in the coming weeks. 

St. Augustine High School will bring socially-distanced students back to classrooms on Oct. 19 — but only two days per week under a hybrid format, President Kenneth St. Charles said.

There are no particular benchmarks the school is looking for to bring students back five days a week. “We will come back when we believe it’s fully safe,” he said.

Darlika Boines, whose son Omari is a senior at St. Augustine, praised the school for taking it slow and keeping parents informed.

“Each school has to make its own decision based on the population they serve,” Boines said. “For me, it’s a family decision.”

Public school districts are also taking a wait-and-see approach. Neither Jefferson nor St. Tammany have brought high school students back full-time, though K-8 students are attending five days per week in both parishes.

In New Orleans public schools, where Pre-K-4th graders returned full time in mid-September, middle and high school students will begin a phased return on Monday, but only part-time.

The full-time of some New Orleans Catholic schools mirrors what some other private schools have already been doing.

“We took lots and lots of precautions,” said Glenn Martin, head of school at Northlake Christian School near Covington, which has about 350 students in grades 8-12 and opened Aug. 6. The school has installed plexiglass in many classrooms, put in air purifying units and has “hand sanitizer coming out of our ears,” he said.

There have been positive cases, but Martin said the non-denominational school had conducted contact tracing focusing on groups of students. Quarantined student have participated in classes online, he said.

Parents seemed to want their children on campus: only about 10-15 students in grades K-12 have opted for the fully virtual option, Martin said.

“We’ve had a lot of understanding parents,” he said. “A big part of that is communication.”

Similarly, at Pope John Paul Catholic High School in Slidell, students have been back full-time since Aug. 10, said Calandra Corder, the school’s director of communications. Like every school, bringing students back required some reconfiguration and new procedures, but only a few opted for a fully-virtual option, she said.

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While several schools say they committed to giving families virtual-only options, especially if they can prove medical vulnerability, some leaders of institutions that have had full-time, in-person class since August say those requests have been dwindling since the start of school.

When Mount Carmel began classes, 18 students opted to learn from home due to medical or personal reasons. By October, that number had dropped by half, Simno said. 

And at Academy of Sacred Heart, another Catholic school in New Orleans, most of the students who had started the year learning from their homes have since returned to class on campus. Meg Manthey LaBumbard, Sacred Heart’s director of communications, said parents have begun to feel more comfortable with the school’s coronavirus precautions.

“All in all, we’ve felt very fortunate to be back together as a full school community this year,” LaBumbard said.