What will next semester look like for Westside?  I am curious about this because I want to know if 2021 will be different from the year 2020 and  whether or not  parents will send their kids back to in-person learning.  With the way things are working with a new vaccine, more students may return on campus.  Virtual learning students will most likely want to return to Westside to  be able to communicate  better with their teachers and socialize with their classmates.

So what will next semester look like?  We can only guess since this is a new illness and no one knows a lot about it. This school year,  HISD gave parents the option of virtual or in- person learning. But in the middle of the current semester, the district decided to only offer virtual learning  because of the growing concern from the pandemic.  Parents of Westside students are concerned that their children could possibly be exposed to COVID-19.

In the article from ABC13, the school district closed a number of schools due to outbreaks from COVID-19. They’d done deep cleaning in those affected schools. At the beginning of the year, HISD decided to close schools due to the out of control, uncertain illness. In the fall, they decided to start the school year virtually, however, had to make the decision to halt in-person learning due to growing concerns from schools campuses being closed for positive COVID cases. https://abc13.com/hisd-in-person-learning-online-covid-19-pandemic/7224086/

The year 2020 has been unusual and changed how students conduct business in the learning environment. Everyone is afraid of this disease. No one knows much about it, but a new vaccine has been created to combat it. HISD closed due to safety concerns at the beginning of the pandemic, yet, gave parents the option at one time to send their kids to school. There is a good chance that this may be an option for next semester, unless things get worse. The CDC website is a good source of how schools, such as Westside, can safely reopen. It goes into detail about how to clean, making sure everyone wears masks and hygiene. There are safe ways to reopen but it has to be done correctly. One thing we can all agree on is to get back to normal as quickly as possible.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/schools.html

https://www.houstonisd.org/reopening