Freeport Area School District students to return to classroom

Freeport Area School District will send elementary students back to school four days a week, with middle and high school students returning to the classroom in a hybrid model beginning on Monday.

Fridays will remain an asynchronous remote learning day for all students.

This decision to return students to in-person instruction was made despite substantial covid-19 transmission in the district.

Superintendent Ian Magness advocated for continuing online instruction for at least another week to give students and staff two weeks between holidays and a return to the classroom.

He also voiced concerns that some elementary school classrooms won’t be able to maintain the recommended six feet of physical distance between students if they return to the classroom four days a week.

“Everybody in this organization is assuming risk by having kids in our schools,” Magness said. “We still want our kids in our schools.”

If a school building closes, sports are scrapped during the closure as well.

“I’m just concerned that if we do go back full-time, we’ll have to shut down,” school board member Melanie Bollinger said.

Other members of the board, however, argued they should return students to the classroom next week, in line with a post-holiday mitigation strategy the board adopted in November. That plan included limiting students in the classroom after Thanksgiving and the Christmas and New Year’s break, giving students and staff time to quarantine if they traveled or participated in large gatherings around the holidays.

The school board decided to adhere to that timeline, which brings elementary students back four days a week and middle and high school students back in a hybrid model, beginning next week.

The school board also approved a motion to move a scheduled in-service day from Jan. 18 to Jan. 29, because Fridays are asynchronous learning days districtwide. This way, no students miss a day of in-person learning for an in-service day.