New Kensington-Arnold School District will extend in-person instruction to four days beginning April 6, according to a letter to district families from acting Superintendent Jon Banko.

Banko said the decision to expand face-to-face instruction is supported by the school board, but he did not specify how that was done.

“I have regular and ongoing correspondence with members of the board and there is sufficient support for this move,” he said.

The district’s students have been split into two groups, with each getting two days of in-person instruction per week, under a hybrid schedule in use since Jan. 14.

Under the four-day plan, students will attend school on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday each week, with all students fully remote on Wednesday.

Students attending school in the hybrid schedule are expected to attend all four days, while students fully online will be permitted to continue. Parents of children who have been online who want to send them back to schools for the last nine weeks are asked to notify their children’s teachers.

“Safely expanding opportunities for face-to-face instruction beyond the hybrid model has remained a priority since our return to school in mid-January,” Banko says in the letter.

While other districts returned earlier than New Kensington-Arnold, substantial local covid transmission rates had justified the district remaining in the hybrid model, according to Banko.

“Those rates have been trending downward, and I am optimistic that they will continue to fall,” he wrote.

Banko also noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reduced the social distancing minimum from 6 feet to 3 feet, and that all adult school personnel have received or have had the opportunity to receive one of the covid vaccines.

He added that the “change of seasons will lead to warmer weather and the opportunity to open classroom windows and/or take students outside.”

Use of face masks or shields will continue to be required. The district will continue to encourage maximum social distancing, but 6 feet cannot be guaranteed.

“With decreased social distancing and more people within the schools, the possibility of forced quarantine and short-term school closures will increase,” Banko’s letter states. “Self-monitoring of symptoms and self-reporting of testing will have even greater importance … cases in the school will have much more impact than they’ve had while we have been in the hybrid model.”

The district will continue to offer instruction options to students whose families still have concerns about the virus and choose to stay home.

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