During a special meeting on Oct. 22, the USD 259 Board of Education revealed their plans for the second quarter. The board approved a hybrid learning plan for the rest of first semester. 

“We are stuck in the yellow/orange (according to the pandemic gating criteria), and we are going to be stuck in yellow/orange for a long time… we cannot continue down this path of only remote 100% for any more time in my opinion,” Stan Reeser said. Reeser is the board member who made the motion to pass the hybrid model. 

It was decided that there would be two groups of students, Group A and Group B. Group A will be going to school on Monday and Tuesday, and Group B will be going to school on Thursday and Friday. Wednesday will be remote learning day for everyone. 

Additionally Assistant Principal Morgan Nance mentioned a new lunch routine, “Students we’re going to have two lunches. Like in an A lunch and a B lunch the small number will be divided in half again, and we’ll use the spaces we have available like the main cafeteria and the satellite cafeteria. The district is still deciding whether or not we can offer in open lunch, ideally we’d love to have an open lunch so that kids can further social distance during eating time.” 

With it being so far into the school year many parents are worried about their children going back to in person learning. “If a student was supposed to come face-to-face and they don’t feel safe, or their family doesn’t feel comfortable coming face-to-face, the parent needs to call our assistant principal with whatever your last name is or administrative assistant and speak with that person to see what we can do for you,” Nance said. 

For students attending classes in person during the second quarter, the question still remains, what is the school going to do to keep students safe?  

“(I) think in the classroom it will be a lot easier to social distance because of our blended model where were having half of the students come on Monday and Tuesday and the other half come on Thursday and Friday,” Nance said, “Half of students that are coming are students that are face-to-face and not my school remote so we’re already talking only about 60% of our student population total will be coming to school and then out of that 60% only half will be coming on Monday and Tuesday and the other half on Thursday and Friday.” 

Nance says she and other staff members are excited to see students again. “Even though it’s a little bit scary thinking about bringing people back knowing that numbers are rising. Every adult in this building is so excited about the prospect of seeing kids so if everything goes according to plan, we cannot wait to see you guys starting the week of November 9th,”  

There is still a lot to be decided in the next coming weeks about the new hybrid learning plan, but administrators are confident that everything will go smoothly.