JACKSON CENTER — The 2020-21 school year was a time of readjustment for the students, staff and community of Jackson Center. Since the staff and students spent the spring of 2020 in quarantine along with the rest of Ohio’s citizens and people across the country and our students lost the opportunity to have traditional classrooms, field trips, sporting events, prom, graduation and many more experiences an adjustment time was needed.
“We were not able to bring back all of the programs and initiatives from the previous years, but we were able to reinstitute most of the field trips, ball games and performances. I have told many people over the years that our kids are very blessed to grow up in West Central Ohio because in comparison, so many students across the state and the country were not able to attend school in person and if they did, there were many restrictions,” said William Reichert, superintendent.
His report continues:
The 2020-21 did foster a renewed sense of resiliency and determination amongst our students, staff and community. As the new year began, we were able to pull multiple positive changes out of what seemed to be a spiral of bad news. The goal became to not only weather the storm, but become better as a district and community. We are proud to say that we have improved our understanding of the positive uses of technology, we have increased our willingness to learn more about science and question the media and those that make decisions on our behalf and we have deepened our sense of empathy for those that have struggled with the virus or the results of the shut downs and mandates.
When August rolled around, we (as a community) chose to be in school 5 days a week since our assigned starting date. We are grateful to our state government that we were able to make that decision for ourselves, we are grateful to our parents and our teachers for their support when we made that decision and we are grateful to the other schools in Shelby County and surrounding areas that have chosen to do the same. If we believe that the best education takes place within the walls of our school, then we need to live it. The result was that Jackson Center Schools was only 1 of only 8 school districts in the state of Ohio to improvetheir test scores from 2019 to 2021 and 4 of the 8 were from our area. Once again, the vast majority of students in West Central Ohio did great on the standardized tests regardless of the 20-21 challenges.
Being in school 5 days a week in 20-21 was not without its challenges. Navigating mandates, recommendations, insinuations and sometimes blank stares has been less than easy, but most of the time our students have done their part and as a result been able to experience some normalcy in their everyday lives and their after school events. Our students have discovered that while the wheels of science and discovery may turn slowly, the wheels of government move even slower and we need to react accordingly. However, I am extremely proud that much of the learning that was lost has been made up. I am also proud that currently when a student is forced to quarantine, our teachers have almost mastered the ability to keep them up to speed and virtually (literally) in their class.
As we go forward, it will be the goal of Jackson Center Schools to remind our students to continue to grow and learn and most importantly, replace the bitterness of the last year with great perspective and wisdom.
Please visit our webpage at www.jctigers.org to discover all that Jackson Center schools has to offer.
