Kindergarten through third-grade classes will resume Monday in the Lincoln County School District, but it could be another three months before high school students return to buildings.
The resumption of “hybrid” classes – two days in school and three days online – is the result of new, but constantly changing criteria handed down from the Oregon Department of Education based on the number of local and statewide COVID-19 cases.
It represents at least the third time the Lincoln County district has tried to bring some students back into classrooms only to have the county be unable to meet state or local metrics and forced a change of instruction.
Some 5,000 students in the district have been using online instruction only since the resumption of classes Jan. 4 after a spike in cases in early December.
Now, as the number of cases have dropped and state rules loosened, the district’s plan is to again get the youngest students back into classrooms first, and then bring most other grades back every two weeks.
“This plan staggers students’ return to the classroom, giving us time to make sure it is safe and efficient at each interval and to have adequate time to make adjustments as needed promptly,” Superintendent Karen Gray said in a district-wide letter this week.
On Monday, kindergarten through third-graders will return to elementary schools for in-class instruction two days a week. They had been attending the “hybrid” classes from November through mid-December when the winter break started, then were online only beginning Jan. 4.
Buildings will also be open for career technical education students, some special education students, and students with little or no internet capability, and Otis-area wildfire victims.
On Feb. 16, students in grades four through six will return to school for the first time since last March, when the coronavirus pandemic closed districts across Oregon.
March 1 is the scheduled return for seventh- and eighth-graders.
In an email to district parents and patrons this week, Gray said by March 19 the district will review the number of COVID-19 cases to decide whether to bring back grades 9-12 on April 12.
“High school students are projected to start at the beginning of Term 4,” Gray said. “They are the most difficult to cohort (group) correctly, and they cannot be brought back in the middle of a term because it is too disruptive. Term 3 starts Feb 8; Term 4 starts April 12.”
If high schools reopen April 12, Gray said those students will have finished the year with nine weeks of “hybrid” classes.
“The staggering return gives us time to make sure it is all working well and safely bringing back our high school students,” she said. “I cannot in mere words express how sorry I am that we have been unable to keep to an education model since last March when this Covid pandemic first hit.”
Other details from Gray’s announcement:
- The majority of district staff – if they wanted – started their two-dose vaccinations Jan. 15;
- The district will offer a form of online-only distance learning for families not wanting their student to return to in-class instruction;
- The district’s fully online K-12 program Edmentum will continue to be offered the rest of the year.
- The state’s new guidance says if COVID numbers turn around and go up, the district is to “freeze in place and not add new grades” but also not go back to all-online instruction.
- The district is preparing for athletic workouts for basketball, wrestling and swimming, and schools are holding optional fall sports workouts. District facilities remain closed to outside use.
