CHARLOTTE, N.C. — So far in 2021, a lot of focus has been on the return to the classroom for younger students. Some colleges and universities in the area are already sending students back to campus.

Johnson and Wales University in Charlotte welcomed students back to campus for the spring semester in early February.

Students were supposed to come back in January, but the start of the semester was delayed after the Mecklenburg County Health Director issued a directive asking people to use remote learning until the number of coronavirus cases dropped following the holidays.

Not all students are back on campus. Freshmen, seniors, and those in labs are in a hybrid model where some classes are on campus, and others are on Zoom.

There are safety measures in place for students and staff, including mandatory masks on campus, and a daily health check that needs to be completed before coming to class. In the classrooms, there are also plexiglass partitions that have been set up between work stations.

Isabelle Porcella, a freshman, says she was ready to get back into the classroom after a few months at home.

“Baking classes are almost impossible to do online. You have to be in the lab making the desserts and doing the research, and it’s important to get the hands-on experience because you can’t really get that in your home,” she says.

Chef Harry Peemoeller, a senior instructor with Johnson and Wales, says he’s seen students take the initiative to make sure they’re able to stay on campus.

“They didn’t take it for granted. It was really ‘Look, we’ve got to get this right now. We don’t want to break the rules over here, maybe have a contamination where we’d have to close down and have to go home,'” he says. “We want to get his true over here. We want to get this year finished on a positive note. It was really nice to see.”

Other universities around the area are also using the hybrid model. Queens University returned to campus on February 3, and UNC Charlotte is slated to go back at the end of February.