Newspaper says SV to fully reopen; SV says hybrid model staying
SHENANDOAH – Despite a local newspaper’s front page claim that Shenandoah Valley will fully reopen to students this coming Monday, the school district says it’s holding to the hybrid model it approved earlier this month.
The Pottsville Republican-Herald‘s front page on Saturday reads “Shenandoah Valley to fully reopen,” in the very first headline above the fold, though parents and school officials say that isn’t the case.
“It has come to the attention of the Shenandoah Valley School District that a local newspaper has indicated we have ‘chosen a full return to in person classes in the district,'” Superintendent Brian Waite wrote to district families. “This is not accurate representation of the Shenandoah Valley School District’s plan. We have indicated since early August to families our plan is a HYBRID model.”
The hybrid model was revealed and approved at the district’s school board meeting on August 6.
““The district would come back in a hybrid-mode educational model,” Waite told the board in his report at that meeting. “We’re looking then to evaluate how we’re doing in our opening, with the potential of going to face-to-face as the year progresses.”
“We’ll be ready to pivot either way if we need to go to full face-to-face or full virtual learning once we open under the hybrid plan,” Waite added.
The hybrid model includes staggered in-person classes, am/pm sessions, and other quirks to help keep classroom sizes down.
“Our goal was to try to get as many of the elementary kids in as often as we could, and keep our class sizes small for social distancing,” Waite explained on August 6. “We were able to, within our hybrid model plan, get 4K [Pre-K] through 3 in every day, with some staggered starts for the students in those grade levels.”
“Grades 4 through 8 will come in in am/pm sessions, so that splits the class sizes down so you have half of the fourth graders in the morning, for example, and half in the afternoon, all the way up until eighth grade,” Waite continued. “Our ninth and tenth graders will come in two days a week and be online for three, and our eleventh and twelfth graders will come in for one full day on Fridays.”
The ninth and tenth graders, he added, will also be on an am/pm cycle.
More information about the district’s reopening plan can be found in our August 6 article on the subject here, or at the school district’s website, www.svbluedevils.org.
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