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ABOUT 300 students at Cambridge High School in St James have been unaccounted for since the start of the new school term on January 3, 2022.These students have not turned up for neither face-to-face nor online classes, Harry Hanson, principal of Cambridge told the Jamaica Observer in an interview."We have a school population of 1,100 students and before the pandemic, we would have about 965 to 1,040 coming to school on a regular day. We are trying to reach out to see what has happened to the other students... it is about 300 students who we are not seeing since the start of the term. It's a lot," Hanson said."But every day, we have more students coming. New students are joining every single day for the first time. [There are myriad] issues that are preventing the others from coming in, and we are making contact with them to see what is happening."Hanson told the Sunday Observer that since the novel coronavirus pandemic started, the highest number of students engaged for virtual classes has been 44 per cent."We have the issue where some phones are not working and the most is that either they are getting themselves ready or we find that some of them would've changed location, so we have to be trying to accommodate transfers at this time to better assist them," he explained."We expected some issues because when we went on the streets throughout the period while we were on lockdown. We saw where some students were engaged in employment and when we went to some homes, they would've relocated. Parents are answering calls saying students are in as far as St Mary. Living arrangements have changed."He said that the school's management was meeting with some students to see how they can get them back in school."The Government has initiatives to see how we can re-engage the students. What we would've done is have uniform material and we were able to provide them to some students, so they can come in and so forth, so that is in the making as well."While other secondary institutions aren't seeing such a large number of students outside of school, principals have expressed that some youngsters have had to revert to virtual classes after contracting the novel coronavirus.Dwight Pennycooke, principal of Wolmer's High School for Boys, told the Sunday Observer that some of the boys had fallen ill."We've had good turnout but the issue is the fact that a few of the young men are reporting ill, and so, are not able to come in. The turnout has been good, except for those young men who have reported ill. We have some reports of families that have come down with COVID, and while the young men may not be showing symptoms, they are isolating and so, that's the only reason why young men are not coming to school. We are not getting any kind of hesitation being reported among the families that are here," Pennycooke said.Pennycooke said the school started orientation sessions for first formers last week and as of Monday, they will transition more of the lower school students on campus."We are gently rolling them on. While we have about two classes of first formers here, the other four classes are home doing online classes. That is how we're going to do the first, second and third formers, because many of them have not had any significant time here on the physical compound."By the 31st we will start the full rotation, three year groups at a time - three on the compound and three online. What we did for this term is that we started with examinations for our fifth- and sixth-form students and so, that is allowing us to do a gentle rolling on of our students. Those fifth and sixth formers have been out since January 5, and they come in based on examinations," he told the Sunday Observer.At Yallahs High School in St Thomas, there has been a "significant increase" in the number of students that are coming out."Certainly, students that were not online, students that we did not see for a long time, have returned to the classroom. So, we are happy about that as we are seeing a significant uptick in our numbers. We are keeping a close track on a couple of [COVID-19] cases [and] we are aware of a couple of cases that we are awaiting the results for. I know a few of our students have gone into quarantine," Principal Mark Malabver told the Sunday Observer.He added: "On a daily basis we were averaging around 40 per cent in terms of students being online - and that has gone as low as 30 per cent. Since we have returned we are hovering somewhere around 70 per cent of our students. Last week they started to come in more and more, and we are expecting that as this week goes by, more and more students will come out."Malabver stressed that face-to-face teaching is always better than the online modality."The truth of the matter is that COVID really just threw us off into the deep end, so to speak, in terms of technology. As a system, not enough push was being made, certainly from a governmental standpoint. With COVID, it is what it is."Raymond Treasure, principal of York Castle High School in St Ann, said students are definitely coming out now for in-person learning."When you compare the numbers that came out for online versus face-to-face, more students would've turned up for face-to-face than online... students who we didn't see for a year and a half. The truth is, a lot of students turned up when we had online school, but those who live in areas where they didn't have reliable Internet, they couldn't come, or they would probably turn up for two classes," Treasure explained."Those who had missed online tests and exams, they are now able to participate so we have school on rotation. From grade seven to 10, they come in for 10 days for the month but for grades 10 to 13, they come in every day for 20 days."Treasure told the Sunday Observer that on a given day, at least 90 per cent of students scheduled to be at school are present."Some parents, though, would've made the decision that they don't think it is safe and some have been picking up the flu-like symptoms, so those students are not going to come in because of that situation."Further, he said about two per cent of the school population was repeating."We wouldn't be able to do a lot. If we even tried to repeat 10 students per grade level, that would be a challenge so the most is about five students repeated from the grade seven to nine level - so, about 15 students [in total]. It had to be chronic because it's not like we have a lot of space, and we had to put in two additional grades because of the social distance requirements. So, in the past where you could have a class of 40, you now have to break it down to about 30."