Jim Thorpe Area School District plans to have all students in grades K-12 return at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, with measures in place aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.

School district officials unveiled their COVID-19 reopening plan Monday night during a curriculum committee meeting. The full school board is set to vote on whether to adopt the plan at its regular meeting on Wednesday.

“We recognize as an administrative team that the best place for your children this fall is in school. As long as we can do it safely and in person, we want to get back to traditional teaching.

“But we have to recognize there is risk of COVID-19 exposure. We need to be able to mitigate those risks and create a healthy and safe learning environment for everyone,” said Jerome Brown, the district’s Director of IT services, who is also serving as the district’s pandemic administrator.

The 72-page document includes indefinite changes which would affect classroom instruction, transportation, cafeteria services, and custodian services. It includes plans to reduce the number of students in the building at a given time if the Department of Health returns Carbon County to the yellow or red phase.

If Carbon remains under the green phase, all students would attend school five days a week.

For families who are not comfortable sending their children back to school, the district is setting up its own remote learning program. Rushefski said he hopes parents will consider the “Olympian Learning Challenge” before sending a student to cyber charter school.

Classrooms

Under the plan, all students and staff would be required to follow the Department of Health’s orders requiring masks in all public spaces. Exceptions include people seated 6 feet apart, people eating 6 feet apart, or engaged in any activity 6 feet apart would not be required to wear a mask. There are also exceptions for people with health conditions, breathing issues, mental health conditions, or disabilities.

All students and teachers will be temperature screened upon their entrance to the building on a daily basis. If their temperature exceeds 100.4, they’ll be subject to additional screening, pending being sent home with instructions to be tested, isolated or quarantined.

Teachers will be able to redesign their classrooms to encourage social distancing. The school board is considering delaying the first day of school until Sept. 8 to give teachers time to prepare. Teachers will receive a Plexiglas divider which they can use to create a barrier between themselves and students.

Buses

For transportation, the district plans to allow 48 students per bus, with students sitting two per seat and required to wear masks. Each bus would arrive separately in order to reduce crowding. School bus drivers would be required to wear a mask when students are boarding and departing the bus, but can’t be required to wear one while driving.

The district is also anticipating more parents will want to bring students to school themselves, so they’re taking steps to make that process more efficient.

For the cafeteria, students in grades K-8 would eat meals in their classrooms, while high school students will eat in a common area with no more than three students per table. The district also plans to continue its lunch program for students participating in remote learning.

Other measures

The district has been awarded approximately $600,000 in grants and money from the CARES act it received for COVID prevention measures.

Some of the proposed measures include contact-free water bottle fillers to replace the existing water fountains. Hand dryers will be deactivated and replaced with paper towels. A new custodian is proposed for each district building, solely dedicated to COVID-19 cleaning and mitigation.

The district is also considering adding two long-term substitutes for each building, because substitute teachers are expected to be in short supply when schools resume.

Yellow phase?

Under the yellow phase, students in grades 6-12 would be split into two different schedules. Half of the students would attend school on Monday-Tuesday, and the other half on Wednesday-Thursday. The rest of the week students would be educated online.

Under yellow, each classroom would be limited to 15 students. Paraprofessionals and co-teachers would assist teachers whose classes were split.

Also under yellow, students in grades K-5 would remain in school four days a week because they have the least risk of contracting a serious case of COVID-19, and the most difficulty with remote learning, Brown said.

Under the red phase, all schools would be closed. Remote learning would take place just like it did at the end of the 2019-20 school year, except students would be required to adhere to the school’s schedule.

The district presented a survey of staff and parents which showed there are mixed feelings about the return to classes. 76 percent of parents said they were comfortable with sending their children back to school, while 44 percent of staff said they had concerns for themselves or a family member.

Some board members said they wanted to see the full results of the survey before they decided which way they would vote on the reopening plan.

Board member TJ Garritano praised Brown for assembling a plan aimed at keeping students and staff safe.

“You can never eliminate all the risk, but you’ve done a good job mitigating the risk,” Garritano said.

The school board’s regular meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday. A livestream will be available on the Times News Lehighton Facebook page.