A town hall meeting was hosted for students on Tuesday to discuss updates for returning to campus for the upcoming fall 2021 semester and goals for returning to pre-pandemic times for spring 2022.
Mike Munoz, interim superintendent-president of the college opened the town hall meeting and said, “Signs that our community is moving in the right direction, I think, is really clear. We’ve all been following the news and staying up to date with all of the information that’s coming out of the different county health departments, and we can see we’re on the right track.”
Kathy Scott, executive vice-president of academic affairs, presented a slide on the efforts the college has been making to academically support students. Study spaces and computer labs are now open at both campuses and the math success center will be opening on June 15. The ESL center will be opening this week at the PCC campus.
The priorities for classes returning this upcoming fall are the following: trades, nursing, allied health, studio and performing arts, math, english, ESL, athletics conditioning and activity classes, and other first year courses such as psychology, political science and sociology.
Emphasis was placed on all of the news that was said in the meeting, being contingent based on the public, local, regional and state health orders at the time of announcements.
“I want to couch my remarks with keeping in mind that the situation that we’re all living through is fluid. Much of what we’re planning for is going to be contingent upon the public health orders at that time,” said Munoz.
New areas of student services are now available for in-person support such as the admissions & records, financial aid and veteran services and the student health services which are made by appointment only.
In June, additional student service areas will be opening such as the welcome and transfer center at the LAC and EOPS/CARE and CalWORKs at the PCC.
During the Q&A, a student expressed their dissatisfaction stating that the college should not wait to fully return in 2022 and that she has taken almost all of her courses online and has been struggling.
Scott replied, “We try to be cautious and put the health and safety of our students and faculty and staff first … We don’t want to go so quickly that we’re not prepared and we’re not putting our health needs first.”
Following Scott’s response, Nohel C. Corral, interim vice-president of student services said, “We do have to comply as Dr. Scott mentioned with state, county and city health orders but we are looking forward to having restrictions lifted and opening the campus safely, healthy and in a phased in approach.”
Distancing will be required in classes and according to Scott that means a class that typically held 40 students will only hold 20 students this fall.
“We can’t accommodate the same number of students in face to face classes so if we were to come back completely face to face a lot of students wouldn’t be able to get the classes that they need,” said Scott.
Plans for an in person commencement for 2022 will be based on the school’s ability to return to a pre-pandemic time. Corral said, “We would need to have guidance from the state on what would be allowable and what would not be allowable.”
A question whether the vaccine will be made mandatory to come back to campus and according to Corral, the state chancellor’s office will be recommending that the requirement of vaccines will be a local decision. That depends on the city, environment, numbers, cases and rates of COVID in each individual district of California.
The UC’s and CSU’s requirements of the vaccinations have been discussed as well to consider making it required for the community college.
A health screening application is going to be available for students and will be required before coming on to campus. This can be completed at home and will save more time if completed at home rather than at the college according to Scott.
California won’t lift it’s mask mandate until June 15 but masks will still be required on-campus.
Corral said, “California, we’re still operating off of Cal/OSHA requirements for work sites. Those requirements still include social distancing and masks. We can’t get away from what’s required by our state law and we will be continuing to follow the health orders as those change, then we’ll communicate that as well.”
Cal/OSHA protects and improves the health and safety of working men and women in California.
40% of classes to return has been a goal for the college as announced in a memo for students sent to them via email last month, in which the school will be looking to achieve that goal this upcoming fall.
The goal now for spring 2022 is to operate as it was before the pandemic according to Munoz.
Munoz showed a brief video of what the school has been doing while operating throughout the recent past months of the pandemic.
Some points that were made during the video were that the college has been successfully holding essential labs for students and faculty since summer, safety protocols that are mandatory on campus now such as sanitization stations are available around campus and wearing masks while on-campus and the athletic programs started in-person conditioning last month.
Some participants during the Q&A portion of the meeting expressed their enjoyment of online classes and were wondering if the online classes offered at LBCC would be eventually phased out or if the quality will stay the same going forward.
In response Scott said, “We expect to go back to more of whatever normal is in spring, but I think normal is going to be more online classes than we’ve had previously because some students like and enjoy it.”
Synchronous and asynchronous classes will continue to be available going forward.
“We anticipate having both of those available in the foreseeable future as well as face to face classes. We will not phase out online instruction, it’s been increasing over the last 10 years,” Scott said.
A study done by College Choice last month shows that online learning has grown in popularity within the last five to six years.
Lastly, as the town hall concluded, Corral said, “Students, thank you for being patient with us and rolling with us as we reopen the campus. We look forward to seeing you in person.”
The 2021 fall semester will begin on August 30 and end on December 18.
Overall, returning to campus for both fall 2021 and spring 2022 remains ongoing even though plans and goals are set in place, since they are still subject to change based on health orders, state guidelines and local decisions from the board of trustees.