As positive COVID-19 case numbers trend downward, local school districts continue to balance learning and safety while evaluating educational models for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year and beyond.

An Associated Press article published recently said schools nationwide are planning for the possibility of remote learning extending into the fall. Local officials said while the goal is to allow all the students who want to be in the building five days a week to do so next school year, the online learning option is likely here to stay.

“We are optimistic for the fall of 2021. Our hope is that our students will be back to school so we can have some normalcy,” Dr. Lee Lesisko, Pleasant Valley superintendent, said this week. “While we look forward to having students back in the buildings, we will still offer options for instruction that meet the needs of our students and families.”

Pleasant Valley, he said, will continue to work within the hybrid-learning model as it has since the beginning of the school year. However, in the approaching fourth marking period, it plans to pilot synchronous learning programs and continue hybrid as well.

“The coronavirus has changed the way we deliver instruction,” Lesisko said. “Because of COVID, students have more choices in their education programming then they ever had before. We feel these changes will remain intact, whether it will be synchronous, asynchronous or a combination of both.”

In Jim Thorpe, the district allows parents to choose whether they want to participate in hybrid learning or full remote through the district’s cyber program. Under the hybrid model, students in grades 6-12 attend school two days a week, and online three days a week. Students in grades K-5 attend school in person four days per week with one day per week online.

“We are hopeful that maybe come April into May, we can transition back to a five-day schedule in person, but it will depend on where Carbon County is with is COVID-19 transmission level at that point,” Jim Thorpe Superintendent John Rushefski said. “If the county is in the low spread level for two consecutive weeks, we can look to do that.”

Rushefski said he is hopeful by that point, most staff members will have had the opportunity to get vaccinated. He said he’s proud of how the district has controlled what it can within its own buildings.

“From the start, we didn’t want Jim Thorpe to be a place where COVID-19 spread throughout the schools, and fortunately, our schools haven’t been that beacon of spread,” Rushefski said.

Like several other superintendents, Rushefski said a cyber learning option will more likely than not be offered in 2021-22. For the next quarter, Jim Thorpe will have 40% of its students having opted for a full five-day remote learning option.

“If we don’t offer a cyber option, we stand to lose those students to an outside charter school at $14,000 or $15,000 a student,” he said. “I think we would be being very responsive to the Jim Thorpe community in having a cyber option available here.”

Northern Lehigh is currently reviewing information gathered from recent surveys to parents/guardians and employees concerning the best instructional model as it moves deeper into the spring semester.

“We continue to try to strike a balance between teaching/learning and safety,” Superintendent Matthew Link said. “We will do the same for the fall semester. We continue to review information related to the vaccine, when educators can expect to have full access to it, and county transmission levels.”

The district currently offers a hybrid model, four-day in-person option for vulnerable populations, a five-day remote option, and the Bulldog Academy.

Link said it’s much too soon to give an answer on what classrooms in the district will look like in the fall.

“Our focus is now on the remainder of this school year,” Link said. “We certainly hope that we have our students back in the building five days a week in the fall and we do not have to pivot back and forth between multiple models due to transmission of the virus.”

Link acknowledged there may be some families that are hesitant to send their children back in the fall.

“There is the potential we may have to offer fully remote learning for some students, though we do not suspect it to be anywhere near the numbers of students participating in the fully remote model this year,” he said.

What Northern Lehigh has done so far has worked, Link said. That includes everyone wearing face coverings and social distancing. He credited teachers, staff, students and parents for making it possible.

“Many of the concerns that I had last summer going into the school year never materialized,” Link said. “Our overall transmission level among our students and staff cumulatively since the beginning of the school year is at 3.32%.”

As for what would need to change for students to come back full time this spring, Lesisko said it starts with recommendations from the state and its top health officials.

“When a student or staff member tests positive for COVID, the Pa. Department of Health indicates that anyone within 6 feet must quarantine,” he said. “This is problematic because everyone in the class will at some point be quarantined. In order to return, the social distancing requirement would need to be amended.”

Thus far, however, Lesisko said the recommendations have worked and the virus has not spread in district schools.

“Safety of our staff and students is our top priority,” he said. “We are pleased that staff, students and parents have gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure students are successful. We are living in an unprecedented time and our actions speak volumes on how resilient we are to adapt to our surroundings.”

Link said a number of variables have to come together for the full return of all students.

“The vaccine needs to be made easily accessible to education workers, transmission levels need to continue to decline, we are working on having bi-polar ionization devices installed in every HVAC unit in the district to assist in rendering the virus inactive and overall provide cleaner air quality,” he said. “After all of this time, direct guidance from the state Department of Health, Department of Education, and the Center for Disease Control to the local districts continues to be most decisions are local decisions.”