Cuesta College held in-person classes this summer despite COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s how
The classroom was eerily quiet.
Students working at their lab stations peered into microscopes, breathing silently through masks. The usually bustling and noisy classroom was occupied only by wary students and the thick smell of disinfectant.
Chris Machado, human physiology teacher at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, said it was one of the strangest things he had ever experienced in his nearly 16 years of teaching. But something about it felt oddly familiar, he said.
“I used to work in a biohazard lab and we had to follow some of the same procedures just to get into the classroom at Cuesta as I did while working there,” Machado said.
Machado was one of a small number of teachers at Cuesta College, a public community college with three campuses in San Luis Obispo County, who taught in-person classes this summer despite restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. The final week of Machado’s eight-week human physiology class was moved online due to a recent spike in COVID-19 cases, he said.
Physiology, engineering and manufacturing, and electrical classes were offered in person during the summer term, while some sports were coached on campus.
When COVID-19 cases first appeared in San Luis Obispo County, it was relatively straightforward for most classes to move online, said Jason Curtis, Cuesta College’s vice president of academic affair.
Some classes, such as those with hands-on lab portions, were difficult to teach solely online, he said.
“We have a hard-to-convert category of classes that really don’t lend themselves well to being taught online,” Curtis said. “So we had to figure out, okay, how can we get kids into the classroom while still keeping them safe?”
Cuesta College designs coronavirus-free classroom experience
Machado said he was given two options — either teach his physiology class entirely online, or come up with a way to keep students safe in the classroom.
“I had never taught an online class before and I never really wanted to,” he said.
So Machado decided to design a strict protocol that students were required to follow to make the class successful. After that protocol got signed off, classes began in early June at Cuesta College’s San Luis Obispo campus.
Students wore masks and had their temperatures checked before they entered the classroom. The only materials they were allowed to bring into the classroom were their plastic lab notebooks and personal items such as cellphones and keys.
They also had to fill out a health questionnaire and washed their hands after they were allowed to enter, then put on gloves, walked straight to their designated work station. The students then sanitized their chairs, desk areas, pens, pencils, notebooks and other lab materials left at their stations before finally sitting down.
Machado sent the students a detailed video describing exactly how to behave in the lab.
His class of about 30 students was split into two classrooms to allow for social distancing.
“It was kind of weird and definitely tense at first,” said Tanner Fry, a Cuesta College student hoping to earn his nursing degree.
The 28-year-old, who came back to college this summer to earn a degree in a field on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, said he was initially nervous to gather in a classroom full of young college students.
But Fry said he was reassured by looking around and seeing the obvious dedication of the staff and other students to keeping everyone safe.
His classmates mirrored that sentiment.
“It was a little bit comforting, like OK, this is really going to be taken seriously,” said Isabella Cavlan, a Cuesta student who is working toward earning her pre-nursing associate in science degree. “And Dr. Machado said to us that if anything happens that compromises people’s safety, we risk the college canceling this class and ending it with no warning and no credit awarded to anybody.”
At most colleges, students hoping to earn their nursing degrees need to have completed certain pre-requisite classes, including physiology.
Cavlan said that if Machado’s class had been canceled, she would have had to wait an additional year to apply for a nursing program at another school, and students wanting to apply to Cuesta’s nursing program may have been pushed back two years.
“Everybody understood that if a rule was broken, we really risked losing it all,” she said.
Water polo, other sports also held on campus
Students and athletes were also able to participate in some on-campus activities and training sessions this summer. Men’s water polo, cross country and women’s volleyball were all able to resume training, Curtis said.
John Marsh, who coaches the men’s water polo team at Cuesta College and teaches a swim class there, said the challenge of sanitizing and maintaining social distancing was worth it.
“All of the students were excited,” he said. “It had been 100 days since the athletes had been in the water, and even more for the others.”
Marsh said he had to redesign practices and create no-contact games to simulate a water polo game. But since the team had not been in the water for so long, they were just happy to condition and re-learn how to swim.
“We could go run laps if we wanted, but that’s not the same as actually being in the water and teaching your muscles to move in the water,” Marsh said.
The California Community College Athletic Association announced on July 9 that all fall sports would be shifted to the spring season. For athletes at Cuesta College, training resumes when classes start on Aug. 17.
Marsh said despite having five weeks in the summer to train, the team is still out of shape because of the amount of time off they had. However, because many other community colleges in the state did not allow in-person training for athletes over the summer, Marsh said Cuesta College’s athletes ahead of the game.
“It’s been a change from what we’re used to, of course, but I’m happy we were able to get back in the water,” he said.
Students want in-person classes while teachers hesitate
Students at Cuesta College were not required to take any of the in-person classes offered this summer as all had online counterparts.
About 70% of Cuesta students said they hoped to take classes on campus, according to results of a student survey sent out by the college, Curtis said.
Faculty, on the other hand, were often less enthusiastic about the concept of in-person classes, Curtis said.
“It’s a real commitment for faculty,” he said. “They may not feel safe in there with the students not knowing where they were that weekend.”
As cases continue to rise in San Luis Obispo County, Cuesta College is back to square one: figuring out whether it can offer in-person classes anymore.
Machado said all of his classes will be online for the fall — a disappointing, but necessary, shift. Virtual labs for classes such as physiology take away the hands-on portion and any room for error as all of the data is simulated, he said.
“I’ve never not been on campus in the years that I’ve taught at the school,” he said. “But with cases spiking, it’s hard to justify the risk over the benefits.”
This story was originally published July 21, 2020 at 1:49 PM.
