Community College welcoming students back to campus after over a year of online

Around this time last year, K-12 public and private schools and universities across Tennessee were opening their doors to students – whether that be a later start date, a virtual start before an eventual in-person return, hybrid models or phased re-entry – after the coronavirus pandemic closed those same doors in March 2020.

Since then students at two of West Tennessee’s community colleges, Jackson State and Dyersburg State, have been educated under a virtual model. But in late August, the colleges will welcome their students back for the first time in over a year.

At Jackson State, most of the students aren’t right out of high school but average around 26 year years old, said JSCC Vice President of Student Services Kyle Barron.

“When the K-12 school system shuts down, a lot of our students were also impacted.”

Many JSCC students, many of whom are also parents, might’ve signed up for a 9 a.m. class, knowing their children would be in school at that time. When schools, churches and daycares shut down, that parent, as a Jackson State student, would’ve had to miss each class, and eventually, be dropped from it, unless JSCC could find an alternative: online education.

“Online education was a good, working solution,” Barron said.

Over the last year-and-a-half in response to the pandemic, only health science and manufacturing courses were on campus as those hands-on classes couldn’t be done online, unlike all the others could be.

For example, health science students couldn’t check a heart rate and manufacturing technology students couldn’t engineer machines online.

Now at a different stage of the pandemic, Jackson State can welcome its students back in-person, if they choose that option.

50-50 split

Before the college’s all-online learning, online class enrollment hovered around 15%, according to Barron.

The pandemic and the college’s response shifted that dramatically.

Online and in-person class enrollment is split 50-50.

“Students who like online classes and enjoy the flexibility of it stuck with it and kept it (this year),” Barron described. “But the students who wanted that in person experience, they want to come back in person so we’re here for that.”

Regardless of the percentage of students in each learning model, all courses will be offered on campus and will be offered online, except for those hands-on fields.

“Now that the teachers know how to do it, it’s also easier on them,” Barron noted about professors enjoying teaching online and offsite.

What’s dictating reopening

The JSCC’ plan for reopening on campus has changed with the altering guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Last week, JSCC changed its mask-wearing policy to require face coverings, which follows CDC guidance that now recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students and visitors in K-12 schools. The CDC reversed an earlier recommendation saying only nonvaccinated individuals should wear masks.

That late July reversal was like a “moral defeat” for Jackson State, Barron said.

“We were gearing up and getting excited to get back,” he said days after the reversal. 

Read more: West TN schools take the lessons of the pandemic, do what’s best for their students

But no matter how much people and organizations want to reach pre-pandemic normalcy, Jackson State won’t be abandoning some procedures with the continuing spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus.

Mask wearing, optional temperature checks and at least three-feet social distancing are the CDC-guided protocols the college expects. The classrooms are big enough to space out student seating, and class sizes can be reduced by a couple of students to accommodate spacing in the labs, according to Barron.

The college will continue to clean as it did at the height of the pandemic and follow quarantine protocols. 

JSCC also has a revamped HVAC system that is more efficient in cleaning the air.

“They don’t see that (the HVAC system) but it is done for them and their safety in making sure the college is able to continue in whatever the new normal may be,” he said. 

Because classes aren’t slated to start until late August, guidelines are pending based on the possibility of CDC guidance changing again.

Pandemic led to grant funding that’s improving student retention, success

Like educational institutions across the country, JSCC is using an influx of federal grant funding to improve student retention and success through needed devices, technology advancements and student-focused grants.  

Because of the pandemic, each instructor now has an online course with the ability to transition all their classes to the online format as well as the appropriate software for staff to work remotely if there’s another shutdown.

Even though health sciences and manufacturing were the only two types of in-person courses this past year, the college hasn’t found a way to move those courses to an online format. The college has purchased virtual reality equipment to try and do that but realizes it still doesn’t replace the hands-on experiences of those classes.

For students, the school has 700 laptops available for check out.  

Things such as the student laptops and software to engage with students were things the school had never had before – partly because of a lack of funding in those areas, Barron said.

Grant funding because of the pandemic has led to long-term student benefits and success, he said.

“It has been an absolutely terrible situation for the entire country. However, there are some really good things that have come out of it,” Barron said. “For us, it’s turned into computers. It’s turned into grants.”

Fifty percent of funding went directly to students through need-based disbursements to offset living and education costs.

This year, there’s a grant that will pay for new students to take two classes with their books paid for.

This past summer, students who returned to JSCC after withdrawing from or dropping classes because of the pandemic got to take two classes.

To Barron, that’s only because of federal COVID money that’s come to students who were impacted by the pandemic.

“To this point, I don’t know any student who hasn’t been impacted,” he said. 

No matter the age, students are excited to come back

Students are excited to have a college experience that they feel they were robbed of, Barron has learned.

“For the most part, those are the same ones who were robbed of their senior prom,” he said about the high school Class of 2020.

Even other age groups of students are excited to come and “restart their education,” he said. For example, there are students who struggled with online education and are eager to return to the in-person setting as well as students who returned to school to get a higher level of education to rise on their career ladders, Barron discussed.

And to welcome those excited students back to the Jackson State community, the college held a grand reopening Saturday.

“Students have had to adapt and learn new ways of learning; faculty had to learn new ways of teaching," Barron said. "I think education, as a whole, will benefit from that moving forward and we’ll see dividends of that for years to come."

Lasherica Thornton is The Jackson Sun's education reporter. Reach her at 731-343-9133 or by email atlthornton@jacksonsun.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LashericaT