Covid has affected everyone these past few years, and it has struck again. Many have noticed the growth of missing kids as more and more students stay home sick, and with the new version of covid many are wondering; Will students be going back to remote learning?

Some schools, like down in Seattle, had to revert back to remote learning after the school was infected with covid. With more cases appearing, Arlington might do the same. 

Sports have also been affected too. For instance, a portion of the Arlington high School’s wrestling team covid before winter break. 

When asked, the AHS nurse,  said, “I don’t know the exact numbers, but it was a good chunk of, you could say it was a lot of the high risk athletic kids for wrestling and basketball.”

What does testing look like at Arlington HIgh School? If students start showing or feeling symptoms of covid they are sent down to the nurses office, which the student is then given a rapid test. 

“Well we have to take the person who’s having symptoms to the isolation room. Then we get parent permission, unless they’re over eighteen they can sign for themselves, and then we just administer the test and get results in 10-15 minutes,” said one of the district nurses.

Throughout the entire district 1,295 students have tested positive for covid, since the beginning of the school year, and about 100 students throughout the district take rapid tests per day. 10% of AHS is out due to covid. With these numbers in mind it really shows how covid has affected the schools within the district.

The article How Reliable are Covid-19 rapid tests for detecting Omicron stated, “Some research indicates that rapid tests may be less sensitive to Omicron than they are to other variants. That means the tests might be yielding more false negatives, especially in the early days of infection.”

It’s not just Arlington High School being affected, many of the other middle schools and Elementary Schools are being affected as well. 

One of the counselors at Kent Prairie, Mrs. Moore, said, “With the latest surge of covid. It was also difficult to work with students because they just weren’t at school.  We’ve worked through the last month short on teachers and having some classrooms with only 4 students able to attend.”

With all of the negatives there are also positives.

Mr. Fish said, “The biggest positive  that we can truly take away from this is, that if you’re sick don’t take it to school or work.”

Students, Teachers, and parents are all hoping to stay out of online learning, so Arlington High School has and continues to follow the community guidelines. With the peak of Omicron reducing, it is less likely that Arlington will be going to online classes, however new variants are forming and many aren’t sure what will happen in the future.

“The possibility of going to remote learning is there. The possibility of shutting down sports is there. It’s just those are things that our district leaders, and I as your principal don’t want to do. By all means necessary to keep our doors open.”