Poor attendance as COVID-19 surges and Omicron strikes Davis schools

PHOTO: Students absent from class in large numbers as COVID-19 cases at Davis High reach all-time high.

By Lewis Herring-Tillman,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

The COVID-19 Omicron variant has placed hundreds in quarantine and caused widespread staffing and testing shortages since the second semester began for Davis Joint Unified School District. 

“This surge is more prolific than any other we’ve seen,” DJUSD interim superintendent Matt Best said. 

Meanwhile, the count of students who were at home with COVID-19 reached an all-time high of 108 on Jan. 10. According to students, the number of students absent from school is noticeably much higher.

DHS sophomore Charlie Mellema tested positive shortly after coming back from winter break. 

“I did feel like, ‘this was going to happen eventually,’ and members of my family are becoming sick too,” Mellema said.

DJUSD contact tracers previously sent individualized emails to families informing them of exposure to COVID-19. Now, a single list of classes with potential exposures is emailed to families. 

Mellema, like some other students, is in favor of temporarily going back to distance learning. According to Best, that is not logistically possible due to state laws passed over the summer. 

“If we were to close, it would only be on a classroom-to-classroom level,” Best said. “And even then, we have a robust plan to keep all of our classrooms open through substitutes.” 

This plan includes placing coaches in substitute positions, assigning teachers to other classes during prep periods and even asking administrative staff to go from site to site to fill other roles. Best himself was a substitute at an elementary lunch line.

Auto tech teacher Robert Thayer is just one of many teachers who have seen their classes shrink. He agrees, however, that schools should stay open.

“Most people would agree with me in saying that we should avoid closing schools – almost, I want to say, at any cost,” Thayer said. “Even though it was easier for high school students, distance learning was bad across the board.”

Art history teacher, Doug Wright, has stayed home on some days while one of his six children is in quarantine after testing positive. 

“It’s really hard when you are trying to understand expectations at work while also trying to run a partially-quarantined household,” Wright said.

Wright expressed concern over other families who have been in partial quarantine recently. “A few years ago, we all lived in a condo and it would have been impossible to quarantine there,” Wright said.

There has been concern that some students and staff will be reluctant to engage in regular COVID-19 testing to avoid a positive result.  

“Everybody at some point has gotten or is going to get some variation of this,” Wright said. “It seems better at this point to mitigate the virus’s effects than stop it entirely, especially considering how many people are immunized.”

Among the anxiety of Omicron, pandemic fatigue and exhaustion has become the norm.

“We are all struggling emotionally to deal with, and cope with, all these changing conditions that the variants bring,” Best said.