By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Local schools may return to in-person education in mid-January, but the final decision remains up in the air, the Sitka School District announced Wednesday.
When classes resume on January 6 following the mid-winter break, students will resume the virtual learning that they had before the holidays.
But that may change a few days later, Superintendent John Holst said in a message to parents.
“Starting with Monday, January 11, we will hopefully be reopening all buildings to in-person instruction,” Holst said in the email advisory.
“That decision has not yet been made, and we will communicate that information to you sometime next week, once we have looked at all the indicators in the newly updated Smart Start Plan,” he said. “We have a board meeting on Wednesday, January 6th, and we are hopeful that we can announce whatever that decision is at that board meeting.”
Teachers will have in-service days on January 4 and 5. The remainder of next week, Jan. 6-8 will involve online classes to give students and staff who traveled over the holiday the time needed to be tested for the virus following the winter break, Holst said. He specified that Baranof Elementary will provide online education Jan. 6-8 along with other schools, but the district intends to reopen Baranof on Jan. 11.
He told the Sentinel that when it comes to making a decision to open or close schools in the future, the district will use more guidelines than the number of active coronavirus cases in Sitka. In the original Smart Start plan developed over the summer, the cutoff for closing schools was a dozen active cases in the community.
“The plan right now is we’re hoping to be able to open,” Holst said. “And of course it will have to do with other factors too… There’s a pretty good chance that we are not going to see 12 (active cases) again for a while. I think we’ve got to be realistic about that. This is something we have to live with until we get a majority of people immunized.”
The Smart Start plan underwent a number of revisions in mid-December, to include new metrics for evaluating the safety of opening schools.
One of the new metrics from the CDC is a measure of how many coronavirus tests come back positive over a 14-day period
The CDC chart referenced by the school district includes a number of other metrics as well, ranging from the number of new virus cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks to the ability of a school district to implement antivirus protocols such as mask wearing and sanitizing. Other important factors now include the number of occupied hospital beds, and how many COVID patients are hospitalized.
The superintendent expressed confidence in mitigation measures now being taken in the Sitka schools.
“It isn’t like our mitigations were weak in the first place,” he said. “We’ve always felt good about the mitigations in place, and the fact today we did not have – that we are aware of – a transfer of the virus inside one of our buildings. And that’s a key piece. If we’re having school and we have an outbreak and it looks like it was traced back to in-school contact, that could be difficult to follow.”
Schools sent surveys to parents, students and staff this month inquiring about reopening, and the result was emphatically in favor, Holst said.
“We know that at least 80% of our parents support reopening,” he said. “If and when we do reopen, parents will have the option for their child to remain in virtual instruction. No parent will be forced to make the decision to return to face-to-face instruction.”
Holst hopes the COVID vaccine will offer a safe avenue into 2021.
“Along with many other district employees, I received the COVID-19 vaccine,” he said. “This will certainly have a positive effect on our in-person instructional efforts in the new year. SEARHC has done a superb job of delivering the vaccine and doing their part to help us to reopen the schools in the new year. Thank you, Dr. Bruhl, and all your staff for an exceptional effort on behalf of our students and staff,” Holst wrote. He said about a third of school staff members have received the vaccine so far.
“If we can have anybody who wants to be vaccinated vaccinated, that certainly is going to lower the risk,” he said.
As winter grinds on, Holst said returning to school and athletic activities will provide a respite for both parents and students.
“We need to get back to as many normal things as we can and do them safely,” he said. “The kids desperately need some sense of normality in their lives, especially now we’re headed into the cabin fever time of year… If we can get the kids into the buildings, that will alleviate a whole bunch of pressures for parents,” he said.
Along with the possible reopening of schools in the coming weeks, Sitka High Activities Director Rich Krupa told the Sentinel that plans are afoot to return basketball players to the court in January as well.
