Carlynton School District has decided to begin the school year with remote instruction for the first four and a half weeks.

Superintendent Dr. John Kreider said the district will monitor local and state data early on to make the appropriate determination as to whether to continue being fully remote, move to a hybrid approach or allow students back into the buildings five days a week at full capacity.

Regardless of what the district transitions to, students will have the option to continue remote learning, according to the Health and Safety plan on Carlynton’s website.

The first day of school is Aug. 24.

“The remote learning model that we plan to use will look dramatically different from the program that we had in March,” Kreider said. “March was a quick response, a matter of 10 days to get remote learning up and running. Now that we’ve had time to reflect, one issue was getting students to engage and socially interact with other students. We can attempt to replicate that in an online environment by allowing our students and teachers to interact using cameras much more often. Students can engage in dialogue with classmates throughout the learning process.”

Students will have scheduled reporting for classes and notes, videos and/or lessons will be uploaded daily, according to the plan.

Previously, Carlynton supplied at least one laptop per household. Now, the district is working toward ensuring that each student in the district has his or her own laptop. Kreider said that specific dates and times will be set up for students to pick up their laptops and meet their teachers face to face.

The district is also making arrangements to ensure that each student has access to the internet, much like it did in March.

The hybrid model can be used in the green phase and could be considered if the area is in the yellow phase. It would have students reporting to school buildings two days a week – and social distancing – with remote learning taking place on the other days.

The traditional model has students attending classes in person each day, and in areas where 6 feet of social distancing cannot be achieved, 3 feet of social distancing will be implemented. Cleaning and sanitizing of high-touch surfaces and buses, an increased number of no-touch flush toilets and additional circulation of outdoor air, HVAC and windows are all part of the back-to-school plan.

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