GREEN BAY (NBC26) — Teachers, staff and parents within the Green Bay Area Public School District are getting ready for a return to in-person learning next week for the first time in almost a year.
Grades 6 through 12 will follow a blended instructional model with A-B cohorts. Those students will spend two days a week in the classroom and three days in virtual learning with their assigned cohort.
Around 850 of the nearly 1,200 students at Edison Middle School opted for this in-person educational model. The rest will continue learning fully virtual.
Daniel Slowey, principal at Edison Middle School, said the district worked with families to ensure their kids ended up in the same cohort, no matter the grade.
"At the middle school level it is obviously unique, because you may have a class first period that has a cohort A math class that is 11 students on one day, and then the next day it could potentially be totally different where it's only five," Slowey said. "We're excited for this next phase and want to make sure we support everyone."
Sixth-grade students will be the first back at Edison on March 1. Other grades will follow on March 8.
All students and staff across the district are required to wear face coverings. Hand sanitizer will be placed in classrooms and around the school.
Classrooms are as socially distanced as possible. Some areas will have plexiglass dividers when students need to work closely together or one-on-one with teachers.
Marie Viste, a teacher at Edison, said she has tables instead of desks in her classroom that are spread out so students are four to 6-feet apart.
"When I think about what students are going to need to plan for and anticipate, is they're going to anticipate being engaged, and their teacher being in the room, and other students being in the room, while still being separate from each other," Viste said. "It's not going to feel exactly the same, but it is going to be surrounded in that educational environment with a little more of that positive peer pressure that some of the students really thrive off of."
Teachers will sanitize surfaces in their classrooms between each class. Staff will deep clean rooms on Wednesday before the change of cohorts.
Staff and students are asked to do a symptom screener each day prior to arriving at school. This is available on the district's mobile app or on Classlink.
The district also reminds families that water fountains will be closed, except for filling stations. Schools encourage students to bring their own refillable water bottles.
While many are opting for in-person class, others are getting ready for another few months of virtual school.
“We feel that they shouldn’t be going back in-person until next school year," said Daniel Hatton.
Hatton has two children that attend Leonardo da Vinci School for Gifted Learners. He said they'd like the COVID-19 vaccine to be more widely available, and more to be people vaccinated, before his kids return to the classroom.
“They don’t want to bring COVID home. My wife has a compromised immune system from a medical situation. That’s why we’re taking this seriously," Hatton said. "We’re standing firm and we feel this is important to keep them safe.”
Responsible for extra cleaning and social distancing, teachers will be in the classroom educating students in-person and virtually as they connect two worlds of learning during the pandemic.
"Our role has always been helping keep students safe. "So this is just about helping keep students safe and helping keep ourselves safe," Viste said. So whether they are virtual or live in the classroom, I want them to know that they are welcome and we're excited for them to be there in either setting."
