St. Vincent will have to wait a little longer to return to the classroom. According to a press release from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, the organization is extending the closure of all archdioceses elementary and high schools, grades K-12, from now through Wednesday, April 22.
Under the new guidelines, teachers will return on Thursday, April 23 with students to return on Monday, April 27. The closure will affect all school programming, including before- and after-school activities, all athletic and extracurricular practices and competitions, and all weekend events. There will be no access to campus buildings until classes resume.
“That’s the hope for when we can come back,” St. Vincent Head of Schools Deacon Robert Huff said of the extension. “Things are changing every day.”
On March 16, The Archdiocese originally suspended classes through April 6, but with more confirmed cases of COVID-19, the decision was made to extend that date even later.
“We were hoping that this would last just a couple of weeks,” Huff said. “But as we are finding out this is nation and world-wide. The best case scenario is we will be back in late April.”
The school has had to go more virtual in its teaching and learning since March 18 when classes were first suspended and Huff noted he believes the learning is going as well as possible.
“Since we are out of school, our teachers are doing a fantastic job of getting material out to the kids,” Huff said. “I think we are doing a fantastic job of maintaining an educational environment as best we can.”
St. Vincent junior and senior high school students are using chromebooks and different methods of learning.
“We have teachers teaching lessons live and students are tuning in at their regular time,” Huff said. “We have teachers that are recording lessons and we are using Google Classroom. We have a variety of different tactics depending on the teacher and the class.”
Perryville, Altenburg, United in Christ Lutheran, Immanuel Lutheran, and Saxony Lutheran followed suit in limiting face-to-face learning until at least April 6. At this time there has been no changes in their suspension of classes.
“The closing of our schools is the best path forward to mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” Archbishop Robert J. Carlson wrote. “I understand we are in difficult times.”
