Coast Community College District classes going online starting next week in response to coronavirus
In-person classes at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Coastline College in Fountain Valley and Golden West College in Huntington Beach will go online starting next week in response to coronavirus concerns, faculty and staff were told Wednesday, joining many other Southern California colleges and universities taking similar actions.
The schools are following direction from the Coast Community College District, which governs all three.
About 80% of Coastline College classes already are online, said spokeswoman Dawn Willson.
“We’re actually well-positioned to take this kind of crisis on,” Willson said. “Right now, we’re just trying to take the risk of the 20% and migrate them online as much as we can.”
School staff will continue to work onsite, Willson said.
“As class formats shift, we will all need to be as flexible as possible, kind and helpful to students — putting their needs first,” according to an announcement Wednesday from college district Chancellor John Weispfenning.
In-person classes that are able should switch to an “alternative format,” including online instruction, starting Monday, Weispfenning wrote, with the goal of most in-person classes being held online following the weeklong spring break that begins March 23.
Those that are not able to switch, such as laboratories and performing-arts and physical-education courses, “should continue to meet next week as scheduled,” though “social distancing options should be considered for these courses,” Weispfenning wrote.
Marc Perkins, who teaches a biology lab at Orange Coast College, said the need to move online so rapidly is “unprecedented.” He said he will meet with fellow faculty members Thursday and Friday to discuss the transition.
On Wednesday, Perkins was beginning to gather photos and videos of plants he had planned to show students. In place of working in person on a group project to write a proposal, he was brainstorming ways to set up mini video conferences among students that he could supervise remotely.
“A lot of the lab is learning the physical how things work: touching the things, the actual physical procedures, the handling of equipment and organisms,” Perkins said. “But in a temporary emergency, I think we can be creative and flexible, and I think we can make it work.”
“The risk in Orange County continues to be believed to be low and the majority of our students seem to be in a demographic that generally has good health outcomes. Yet we know there are many who are vulnerable should the outbreak worsen,” Weispfenning wrote.”The Coast Colleges are taking urgent steps in order to reduce the risk to students, employees and our families. The urgency of this pandemic requires us to act quickly.”
UCI announced that results were negative for a person who was tested for COVID-19 at the Student Health Center.
UC Irvine announced Tuesday that it would be aligning with University of California sister campuses, including UCLA, in precautionary measures against the coronavirus by transitioning classes online.
Other area universities, including Chapman, Pepperdine, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Northridge, USC and Loyola Marymount, as well as the Los Angeles Community College District and Whittier College, also are moving to online classes.
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