The Pleasant Valley School District has a plan to start the new school year that should meet the governor's requirements and still focus on safety for kids and staff. Last week, the board of education approved a hybrid format, with half the students attending school on Mondays and Wednesdays, with the other half on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The two groups will spend alternate Fridays in class - adding up to five days out of every ten.
Superintendent Brian Strusz says their goal is to balance safety with trying to provide a high quality education.
"Once we open our doors on August 24th we want to remain open. The last thing we want to do is go to 100 per cent online learning at any point. We want to get kids back 100 per cent, not go the other way."
When students return later this month, they'll see signs reminding them to social distance and wear masks, they'll sit apart from each other at lunch, and classes will be much smaller.
"We're looking at somewhere between 10 and 15 at most kids in a classroom so class sizes will be very small - there'll actually be some quality learning there."
He also hopes that by the end of the first quarter, in October, the local pandemic situation will be stable enough to allow all the students to return to the P-V schools full-time.
Strusz says the district has just started to survey families to find out whether their children will return to school when the new year begins August 24th, or only learn remotely at home.
