Sellers pulls out victory
Teachers’ wishes come true
PAGE 3
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An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
Student, mom ask GPS to keep classrooms open Higley to consider individualized campus closures. Page 10
BUSINESS................. 19 Yes, this is an escape room.
SPORTS........................21 Cross country runners’ rocky season.
Sunday, November 22, 2020
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
W
ith Campo Verde High School back in hybrid learning last week due to COVID-19 cases on campus, freshman Grace Thompson made it clear to the Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board that she wasn’t happy with it. The board earlier this month set triggers for moving schools back to hybrid and virtual learning in an effort to stop the coronavirus’ spread in the GPS district. “Hybrid learning does not work,” Grace,
14, told the board. “The system that you have put in place is ineffective. No one is learning anything. Last year I was a straight “A” student.” Campo Verde students are expected back on campus full-time this week after going to the hybrid model for 14 days. The board earlier this month approved thresholds for the type of learning that would take place on an individual school campus. If COVID-19 cases per week on the district dashboard are higher than 1 percent at a high school based on school population, 1.5 percent at a junior high campus and 2 percent at an elementary school, that campus would go to the hybrid-learning model. Canyon Valley High School and the RISE
Junior High program – because of their size – would need five and three cases, respectively, for their triggers to activate. Under hybrid learning, students are split alphabetically into two groups that then are in class either Mondays and Thursdays or Tuesdays and Fridays with virtual learning for all on Wednesdays. What pushed Campo Verde, with 1,929 students and staff, into hybrid learning Nov. 9 was the 20 active cases on campus the prior week. As of last week, Campo Verde reported two active cases on the dashboard, which is updated every Wednesday. No campuses last week met the triggers. Grace, who at times became tearful, tore into the board.
see VIRUS page 8
Nightlife may have ebbed, Remember when? drunk driving hasn’t
BY JIM WALSH GSN Staff Writer
GETOUT......................25 EV eateries that respect food allergies.
COMMUNITY........................................15 BUSINESS............................................. 19
SPORTS........................................21 GETOUT................................................. 25 PUZZLE.......................................26
CLASSIFIED..........................................28
P
olice tactics are changing amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but the East Valley DUI Task Force will return during the holiday season with the same goal of promoting public safety by busting as many impaired drivers as possible. Throughout Arizona, driving under the influence arrests are down 10-15 percent this year, but East Valley agencies report the opposite trend, with Gilbert police arrests increasing 31 percent from a year ago and Chandler police also reporting an increase. Mesa and Scottsdale police report little change from a year ago, with drivers still drinking or using drugs before getting behind the wheel – apparently after imbibing at home or pri-
see DUI page 10
It was only last year that the 11th annual 12Ks of Christmas drew hundreds of runners and walkers to Freestone Park. But such Gilbert holiday traditions won’t be happening this year because of COVID-19. For details, see page 4.. (GSN file photo)