DepEd suspends in-person classes

By Jason B. Neola

After it was placed under Alert Level 3 due to the increasing daily cases of Covid-19 presumed due to onslaught of Omicron variant, schools in Naga City were dissuaded from conducting face-to-face classes, the traditional type of learning.

As of press time on Wednesday, Jan. 12, the Naga City Contact Tracing and Monitoring Team has recorded 78 as daily active cases; 90 cases on Jan. 11; 29 on Jan. 10; and 76 on Jan. 9.

In an online conferencing with the members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod on Tuesday, Jan. 11, Schools Division Superintendent Mariano de Guzman of the Department of Education (DepEd) informed the city council that they have to temporarily defer the plan to re-open this month the public elementary and high schools for face-to-face learning.

The DepEd official said the decision to shelve the traditional type of learning instruction was made to limit the possible transmission of the disease in the community and spare specially the school children from being infected.

He said that even the conduct of face-to-face classes in Panicuason Elementary School, which was earlier allowed by DepEd central office, was also ordered to discontinue.

“Even the ongoing validation being undertaken by our personnel on schools to determine whether or not they can conduct in-person classes was also stopped,” de Guzman said.

De Guzman, however, said that “we need to continue preparing the schools and teachers on the transition from modular to face-to-face classes in the best and safest way that we can.”