Hybrid plans - what is your school doing?

[basil]

We are in a low prevalence area, and planning/hoping to move forward with a hybrid plan starting in mid-September.

It seems like our superintendent, principals, school nurses, and a group of teachers have put a lot of work into the reopening plan.

Here is what they have come up with:
-2 days/week in school, 3 days remote; Kindergarten students 4 days in person
-Wednesdays half day remote for everyone, synchronous learning, extra cleaning time between cohorts
-cohorts of 8-10 kids/classroom
-masks required for everyone
-hand sanitizer station in all classrooms
-teachers given masks with clear windows + face shields + amplifier device
-double wide desks spaced 6 feet apart, all belongings (coats, backpacks, etc) kept with student
-all students have Chromebook to take home with them
-all lunches eaten in classroom
-all ventilation updated with air exchangers (apparently predated the pandemic, one school administrator worked in HVAC in a former career)
-all classrooms have windows, any room without a window (few) equipped with HEPA filter air purifier
-tents being placed in school driveways/parking lots/extra space next to building for specials (gym, art, music), mask breaks, any class teachers want to hold outside
-recess equipment split into 4 different sections and only one available to each cohort per day (i.e. one day your cohort gets this swing sets, the next you get the four square court, etc), masks still required at recess
-each cohort with own bin of recess equipment (balls, jumprope, etc.)
-buses limited to 12 kids each
-flu shots required for all students
-Sick policies:
1) Close exposure to known COVID+ quarantined for 14 days, no option to test negative.
2) Sick without known exposure either negative test to come back, or 10 days + 3 days asymptomatic.
3) COVID+ test then 10 days from + test plus asymptomatic for 3 days.
Fortunately, our pediatrician's office is getting the rapid testing supplies in September, so should be able to turn around results in 15 min instead of 7 days, so this should help with #2.

It seems like they don't have a real solid plan for drop off and dismissal, which seems to be the piece of the puzzle they are still working on. I think we will end up walking to and from school, though, and hopefully a lot of other parents decide to do the same (they are discouraging bus use due to the capacity limits) which should make it more straightforward.

Overall, I think the plan seems very safe, and I'm very comfortable with it. I still hope that we are able to return to full in person school at some point this year. I am still disappointed that our state teachers' union is still protesting reopening, and I hope they don't manage to screw up all the hard work that our local district has done.

What is your school doing?

[mmsmom]

Our private school opened last week.... there is so much to the plan I couldn’t even begin to summarize. TK-5 go every day; 6-12 go every other day with synchronous learning on the days they are home. Lower school has lunch in classroom but other grades eat outside or distanced inside in dining hall when weather is bad. They also installed tents. They do have band and are using masks with slits and puppy pads under certain instruments. Sports practices are happening but we don’t know if they will compete yet. They have staggered start and end times but I think that may be something that changes back because it is logistically difficult for families with kids in different divisions... lower school kids go to after care for an hour to wait for their middle school siblings to finish so they can be picked up or take the bus together so it isn’t really controlling numbers.

I’m really comfortable with everything and I have not heard of any teachers who have concerns although there are a couple who are teaching from home. There are also some students who have chosen to be fully remote.

[doberbrat]

PK, K & 1 are hybrid as well as ELL level 1 & 2 and certain SPED populations
Everyone else is remote until 10/31. On 10/15, school board will reassess and make decisions going forward.
Hybrid is 1 week in, 1 week out. Mostly teaching week 1 and concept reinforcement week 2. During week 2, students will have daily checkins - how much depends on grade

Tents in Elem for mask breaks, specials and other teacher use as needed. 2 mask breaks a day. MIN 10 scheduled handwashing times + before/after bathroom use.

1 way hallways. lunch in class

Bus routes are being changed to be further away

HS is completely different. hybrid but dismissed at lunch time. Schedule revamped rather than 50min classes, they're 20 in the am and 30 pm . 3 core classes a day

I think the elem is going to be safe but miserable. The HS is old and already has HVAC problems and I doubt its going to truly be safe. MS is 50/50.

[AngB]

We are in a bad numbers area (14.33% positivity rate, 1.98 cases per 1000, Rn= .99), but also lots of really dumb people so we are re-opening for hybrid learning for however long it lasts. (Meanwhile tons of protests that it's all a hoax and kids don't die from this so school should be ft in person..)
20-30% of the district is doing virtual for the semester.
The kids going (mine included) are going either Mon/Tues or Thurs/Fri, Wed is a virtual day and cleaning buildings. The days they aren't in class are going to be "independent learning days" (since teachers will still be teaching other group of kids..) Masks for grades 3 and up and all adults. No shared supplies. Lunch in classrooms. My kids will not be riding the buses but I don't think there is much special about arrival/dismissal. We are all healthy so we'll see. I will consider it successful if they last a month but I think 2-3 weeks max is most likely.

[petesgirl]

My district’s plan for hybrid is completely ridiculous. They basically said, “Hey parents if you want to keep your kids home any day of the week, that’s fine, just let us know the week beFore what days they will be out. All teachers will post class work on Google Classroom by 4 pm every day so your student can make up the work they missed.”
And they are calling that the hybrid plan. Ugh. So DS has had a different amount of kids in his class every day this week, with most parents opting to keep their kids home on Friday, of course.

[westwoodmom04]

My kids attend two different private schools, one has had a little school (Full day preschool/daycare) in session for more than two months without issue so they are perhaps more confident. Both schools invested in ventilation updates this year, including adding some Uv light filters, had nurses certified as contact tracers, created isolation rooms, bought a good amount of ppe for staff, etc. .

Older child’s school is starting on time on September 1 with phase in for in person (k, pre-k, and pre first start in person from get go). They are adding grades each week, my child, a sophomore, is in the very last grade to start at end of September. She will be hybrid for at least first week, her group goes Monday, Friday and every other Wednesday in person. If everything goes accordingly to plan, they will switch over to 5 days in person (middle and lower school are 5 days in person, no hybrid).

Middle schooler’s school is started in person two weeks later with faster phase in. He’ll also start in person end of September. He will go 4 days a week (Wednesday is remote day for entire middle school), but about half his classes each day will be asynchronous with a proctor. Over the course of a week, each class will meet once remotely, twice in person asynchronous and twice in person Synchronous.

[smilequeen]

Our private secondary school is full time in person (for those that chose it, which is most). We have a virtual option and a hybrid back up plan as well. So my two older boys are hybrid for the first 2 weeks as they learn all the new policies and procedures for the year in smaller groups. If there comes a time where reducing class sizes more becomes necessary, the hybrid plan will be used full time.

They are split in half, not by grade level. All siblings are in the same half (A or B). So this week A is in school on M, B is in school on Tues, all online Weds, A in school Th, B in school F. Any day they are not in school is virtual. They run on a rotating block schedule, so each day only has 4 classes. In school they are longer classes. On virtual days they are 9,10,11, and 12 online. Afternoons are for independent work and outside online study sessions. We are only doing this for the first 2 wee.ks, but so far, it already seems like a great compromise to get kids back in school. If we have to go to this full time, my kids will be OK with it.

The rules are the same whether all in school or hybrid wrt social distancing, masks, lunches in 3rd period classrooms, one way staircases, no locker use, clockwise hall movements, handwashing, cleaning, hand sanitizer, daily health check in on app, staggered arrival times and different entrances for each class, anyone not picked up immediately after school is assigned a supervised room (except for sports, which are allowed to practice).

At full capacity, most of their classes are 10-12 students able to spread out, so hybrid is very small and very spread out.