Greater Latrobe students to return to classrooms beginning Monday

Greater Latrobe students will be able to return to the classroom beginning Monday, after more than a month of full-time remote learning.

The school board voted Tuesday to allow elementary students to return to school five days per week.

Students in grades 7-11 may resume a hybrid model, with half of the students receiving online instruction at home on days when remaining students report to classrooms.

High school seniors will be able to return to school four days per week — on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

“This will allow all students who are preparing to enter the workforce, military or higher education the opportunity to maximize their final year at Greater Latrobe,” said Superintendent Georgia Teppert.

The schedules secondary students follow at Greater Latrobe also will apply for those who attend the Eastern Westmoreland Career and Technology Center part of the day.

Teppert advised families to visit the page for their student’s school on the district website for specific details of the student’s new instructional schedule.

Students in all grades will have the option of continuing with full-time online instruction, which most recently began on Dec. 4, prompted by a surge of covid-19 cases in Westmoreland County.

The switch back to full or partial classroom instruction followed a meeting Monday of the district’s health and safety committee, to review covid-19 case trends in the county.

Teppert said the committee’s four medical advisers noted the county did not have a similar severe surge in covid cases after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays as was seen following Thanksgiving travel and celebrations.

“Our (county covid-19) transmission and positivity rates has significantly declined, and the admission rate in hospitals is much lower,” she said. “However, there still remains a great number of deaths due to covid.”

The latest Westmoreland figures, issued by state health officials, show January’s case numbers are down 40% from December and up 69% from November.

Dr. Michael Zorch, a retired emergency room physician and school director who chairs the committee, said the new instructional plan “makes sense from a medical standpoint.” He noted elementary-age students don’t move about inside their schools as much as older students and are less likely to spread the virus.

Teppert said it was deemed unwise to have all secondary students return to their classrooms at once because of the possibility of triggering new, stricter state-mandated guidelines for closing school buildings when covid cases are reported.

She said the guidelines call for the senior high to close for a recommended three to seven days, or a minimum of one day, for cleaning and contact tracing, if 10 covid cases are reported in a given 14-day period. Since the junior high and the elementary buildings aren’t as large, just six cases at each of those schools would trigger a closure.

“We felt it was best to start back in a hybrid model” at the junior and senior highs, she said.

According to the numbers posted on the district website Tuesday, there were two covid cases at Baggaley Elementary, in the next to last day of a 14-day cycle there, and one case at Mountain View Elementary, in the ninth day of a cycle.

Teppert asked parents to make sure all students are wearing face coverings that are required when they report for classroom instruction. She said, “That’s what’s going to help us remain in school,” along with social distancing.

She said younger students should dress for winter weather because the district’s goal is to have students go outdoors for recess and for breaks when they will be allowed to temporarily remove their masks.

District officials said they want to have all students return to in-person instruction as soon as it’s safe to do so.

The school board’s next committee meeting has been moved up, from Feb. 9 to Tuesday, Feb. 2, so it can reassess county covid figures sooner.