South Puget Sound Community College says fall instruction will remain mostly online
South Puget Sound Community College has announced to students that fall quarter instruction will remain mostly online because of social distancing requirements under COVID-19, an official said.
SPSCC expects the 6-foot distancing rule to remain in place for colleges, and if that’s the case, the college simply does not have enough classroom space to meet the requirement, spokeswoman Kelly Green said.
To meet the current distancing requirement, class sizes would have to be reduced to 10-12 students, she said.
“That’s not feasible for us,” Green said, adding that the college enrolled between 5,000-5,500 students in spring quarter. That’s down 8 percent from the same time last year, she said.
Gov. Jay Inslee, citing federal COVID-19 guidelines, has reduced the social distancing requirement to 3 feet for K-12 instruction, but college officials do not expect a change, Green said.
“If it drops back to 3 feet, which we don’t think is going to happen, we can always add in-person options,” she said.
Green said the college has made no decision about requiring students to be vaccinated, but is “unlikely to require them.”
“If it’s something mandated at the state level, we may change that,” she said.
However, SPSCC is going to add more in-person classes for certain programs where students have struggled the most online, according to the college.
The programs:
▪ Pre-college math and English.
▪ English as a Second Language and Adult Basic Education.
▪ Studio arts, drama, and music.
▪ Lab sciences.
▪ I-BEST, a program that allows students to increase literacy and work skills simultaneously.
▪ College and Career Success.
Professional technical programs that are already operating in-person will continue as is, according to the college.
Fall registration begins May 18.
This story was originally published April 22, 2021 at 11:38 AM.
