For some students in the Northern Lehigh School District, Monday marked a return to the classroom.

Meanwhile, another portion of students spent their first day doing online learning as the 2020-2021 school year got underway.

Regardless, the district’s efforts to combine face-to-face instruction with online learning under its hybrid model went extremely well, according to Superintendent Matthew J. Link.

“All buildings, students in person in the building are being super cooperative, they are all keeping their masks up,” Link said. “The students that are learning online, I checked in with a couple of our teachers and they are hosting their first day check ins with students learning online, and it is going very well; the students are interacting with the teachers, and vice versa.”

That goes for lunchtime as well, Link said.

“The students in the cafeterias are being very cooperative doing social distancing; we have more than enough space where the students are set up to eat to have 6 foot social distancing or greater,” he said. “The kids have adjusted to the new lunch lines and patterns for that; I’m really impressed with how well they’re doing for the first day of school.”

Link gave out special praise to the district’s technology department, a four-man crew that has essentially been doing the work of a staff twice its size.

“We do have some families who were struggling logging in to access Virtual Learning for the first time at home,” he said. “Our technology department has been working around the clock to make sure those families are up and running.”

Additionally, Link said there have been no transportation issues, and buses were running on time.

“Right now, all indicators are it’s a successful first day,” he said. “Student drop off, temperature checks for each student went real smooth; the hybrid model with only half the students in the building, that was a big help.”

Link noted that under the hybrid schedule, Group A, which is students with last names of A-L, will be in the buildings on Mondays and Tuesdays, while Group B, students with last names of M-Z, will then flip and be in-person in the school buildings on Thursdays and Fridays. On Wednesdays, all students will engage in remote learning with teachers in the classroom. The district will also use that day to do additional disinfecting of classrooms and buses.

“I’m very, very proud of all the students, parents, and staff of how they’ve been following the rules, making adjustments, really cooperating with us,” he said. “We’re going to have to do it all again on Thursday (which will mark the first day of in-person in the school buildings for students with last names of M-Z), and my expectations are it will go just as smoothly.”

Last month, Link recommended that the district commit to the first marking period, which runs through Nov. 4, and for special education students to attend four days a week.