Jan. 25, 2021 9:30p
(WGTD)---Racine Unified students--who've been learning virtually since the start of the school year-- will be invited back into the buildings beginning in March.
District administrators unveiled a plan at Monday night's school board meeting to give parents and students the option of either in-person instruction or continuing on with a remote learning format.
The in-person option comes as the number of new coronavirus cases is decreasing and with staff starting to get vaccinated.
Students who decide to go back into the classrooms will return in phases over a three-week period.
The return to school comes with conditions and qualifications. For one thing, Wednesdays will be designated for stay-at-home asynchronous learning. For another, students will be required to wear masks, and will be met with a variety of new rules restricting their movement that are designed to mitigate the spread of the virus.
Teachers will face new challenges, as they'll be teaching to both an in-person and virtual audience. "The live-streaming is very similar to what we're doing right now," said Janell Decker, an administrator who's been helping to lead the effort to develop the return plan. "At the same time they're monitoring in-person, they'll be monitoring the virtual, too," she said.
School board member Matt Hanser said he hopes that parents and students understand that the return to classroom instruction doesn't mean a return to normalcy. "If families expect that when their children come back to the classroom that it's going to be the exact same experience they had last year before March--that's not going to happen," he said.
Board member Scott Coey made clear that he felt the district was rushing things by offering an in-person option before all teachers and staff were vaccinated. Coey, although he lives in Racine, teaches in Kenosha Unified, a district that has offered both in-person and virtual options for most of the school year.
Parents will be getting an email asking them to select a learning format for their children by Feb. 5th.
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