Over half of Palmerton Area School District students who responded to a recent survey from the district will be using the hybrid attendance option in 2020-21, mixing face-to-face instruction and virtual education when classes start Sept. 8.

Dan Heaney, director of curriculum and technology at Palmerton, said 1,240 students, or 66.95% of those who responded, will be attending under the hybrid option.

The district will be splitting students at each grade level into two groups, with one group attending school on Monday and Tuesday, and the other group on Wednesday and Thursday. All students would be participating in online classes on Friday.

Meanwhile, 183 students, or 9.88% of respondents, will be choosing the five-day virtual education option with Palmerton teachers, 100 students will be attending the Blue Bomber Cyber Academy, 71 students will be attending Carbon Career & Technical Institute and 57 students will not be attending a Palmerton program, meaning they will most likely be attending an outside charter/cyber school.

Palmerton has yet to hear from about 200 parents on their plans for the school year.

“It’s been a lot of data to pore through since the survey closed on Friday,” Heaney said.

“We’re contacting those families who have not responded, but now that we have a lot of this data, we can start to formulate the class schedules and who will be attending schools on what days.”

Parents should find out next week what two days their child would be in school under the hybrid plan.

In other survey results, 43% of Palmerton families said they would not need a district-supplied Chromebook for virtual education, while 30% said they would need one device and 15.2% said they would need two laptops. Other numbers indicate 98.9% of families have internet access to support virtual learning and 41.2% of families would need district transportation to get students to school twice a week.

Knowing that almost 60 students may be choosing an outside charter/cyber school has the district’s business office bracing for the financial impact.

Heaney said educating a Palmerton regular education student at an outside cyber/charter school costs the district about $14,000 for a regular education student and $31,000 for a special education student. Students attending the Blue Bomber Cyber Academy, offered through the eBridge Academy, costs the district about $5,400.

“Charter tuition costs are in addition to what is already in our budget,” Heaney said. “For example, if we have a class of 25 and two students leave to go to charter school, we don’t save $14,000 per student because they are leaving the class. We still have to heat the classroom and still have the other overhead costs, but we now also have to pay that tuition to a charter school.”

Business Manager Ryan Kish said the district has budgeted $745,000 for outside charter/cyber tuition.

“Looking at enrollment estimates, we’re expecting to spend over $1 million for regular education tuition and around $330,000 for special education tuition,” Kish said.

“That puts us at about $585,000 over budget right now for those outside charter tuitions. That does not factor in the students who would be choosing our in-house cyber option.”

Superintendent Dr. Jodi Frankelli said the district is contacting families and working to get as many students back under the Palmerton umbrella as possible to mitigate those tuition costs.

When asked by families, High School Principal Paula Husar said she strongly advocates for either the hybrid or five-day virtual models the district is offering.

“I believe in our Palmerton teachers and I support our models and what we are doing here,” Husar said. “I’m not shy, when families ask me for advice, about telling them I think the hybrid or virtual models are the best.”

Back-to-school updates

Carbon County remains at the moderate threshold for community transmission of COVID-19, based on guidance from the state Department of Health and Department of Education.

At the moderate level, schools are recommended to offer a hybrid learning plan, which fits in with what Palmerton is offering its students.

“Even if we hit that ‘low’ designation for one week, don’t suddenly expect a return to a full in-person model of education,” Frankelli said. “The expectation is to maintain a low designation and then decide as a district when it would be reasonable to return to a full in-person model.”

State guidance released last week suggests schools do not need to close when there is one student or staff member who has tested positive at a school building. Should 2-4 students and/or staff in a building test positive or there are independent cases at multiple buildings in a district, the schools would then close for 5-7 days. If more than five students and/or staff in a building test positive or there are 2-4 cases in multiple buildings across the district, schools would close for 14 days.

“There has been a common misconception that schools would shut down if one person tests positive, and with this guidance from the Department of Health, we are seeing that is not the case,” Frankelli said.

“But multiple cases would result in closures, so we want families to have plans in place for child care because this could happen with little or no notice. It’s important for people to have a plan in place should those situations happen.”