Recently Germantown Academy made the decision for Upper School students to move to an all-in person schedule. Unlike other schools like Haverford and Wissahickon, which are continuing hybrid learning, GA is one of the few schools in Montgomery County that is beginning all in-person learning. However, to maintain this all in-person plan, faculty will continue to be strict with COVID-19 precautions and the school will administer testing throughout the school year to ensure safety.
The planning process for how the school year would look started in early August. The original plan was to have Red and Blue days, but this plan shifted during Thanksgiving break when the school changed from 50% to 75% students in-person. The school began to develop and all-in-person over winter break. While making the all-in person plan, Dr. MacKean, Dr. Torrey, and Mr. Schellhas looked at the COVID cases, CDC guidelines, and the vaccination process. Since GA had very low COVID positive rates and some teachers and students were in the process of receiving vaccines, they decided to have all grades come to school every day. Even though COVID cases in Montgomery County are rising, Dr. Torrey said that there is no “direct plan to go back from 100%.” He then added that “if we had some kind of clear evidence that a major spread occurred on campus or that a lot of people were testing positive from school transmission,” then the Upper School would resume Virtual GA. Also, since the seniors leave in May, the school only has one month of all in-person, and then from May to the end of the school year, there will be three grades in the building.
Some students are still unsure if the protocols are 100% safe, whereas other students think that coming to school every day has been “easier, and they like seeing their friends more often.” Moreover, other students “miss virtual days and extra sleep.” Melinda Shen ’24 says, “I like being in person because I prefer in-person learning, but I miss having virtual classes and getting extra sleep.” Adah Kaplan ’24 states, “I think we shouldn’t be all-in person because of the rising COVID cases.” Students have mixed feelings about the new schedule, but they have the choice to remain in virtual GA and are slowly getting used to the schedule change. Next year we will also continue this new all-in-person schedule, but there will be some changes such as bringing back break and shortening classes to 50 minutes.