Unalaska students will continue with distance learning for the time being, while school administrators finalize a reopening plan.
Administrators presented revisions of the district's Smart Start 2020 plan to the school board on Wednesday. The draft of revisions includes cohort systems, staggered schedules and remote teaching options.
The plan also outlines how many positive coronavirus cases would determine when students are in the classroom, learning remotely or a hybrid of the two.
Superintendent John Conwell said the plan is based on the state's alert thresholds for the COVID-19 pandemic.
"When there are five or more community acquired cases, where multiple classrooms are affected, we would stay in the home-based learning mode," Conwell said. "If that dropped to between one and four community acquired cases, with just a single classroom affected, we would go into the hybrid [learning mode]."
But the full details remain up in the air.
"We're still trying to figure out how to do the meals," he said. "We don't want students eating on the bus. We can't really have them in congregate settings here, so that's one of the details we're still trying to work out."
Unalaska school board member Carlos Tayag has been skeptical about the safety of reopening classrooms. And on Wednesday, he said that if students are to return, the plan should be simplified.
"I think it’s too busy," Tayag said. "I think if I'm looking at this from a parent's perspective and trying to understand whether or not my child will be going to school consistently, there's just too much going on here."
He also argued that teachers who are not comfortable teaching inside the classroom shouldn't be compelled to do so.
A survey by the local teachers union reported that 59 percent of teachers are in support of returning to in-person learning, while 36 percent wanted additional information and 5 percent were opposed.
The school board will meet again on Monday, Jan. 25 to discuss further revisions of the reopening plan.
