Spokane school officials on Thursday night held the first of three public webinars to explain their plans for the coming school year.
“Our focus right now is to make sure safety is the utmost importance, to be thinking how we can maximize learning for students during this time and ensuring that we’re there for our families and our kids and we’re there supporting their social and emotional needs," said Superintendent Adam Swinyard.
The district is planning in-school instruction, but it’s also giving parents the option of keeping their students at home with online learning.
The elementary school plan is to have about 20 students per classroom. Children will also eat their meals in the classroom and be given regular outdoor breaks, perhaps as often as every hour.
The district is leaning toward an every-other-day secondary school plan, whereby students would be broken up into two groups. Students in the groups would alternate two- and three-day weeks at school with online instruction for the days they’re at home.
Swinyard says the district will work to keep rooms and surfaces as clean as they can and will, in most cases, require students to wear masks.
“There are some special circumstances outlined in the guidelines, but, in general, kids will be required to wear masks to school and we know that there are a variety of different opinions about that," Swinyard said.
The district will hold a second webinar on this topic next Thursday (July 23) at 6:30. You can go to the district’s website to read more about its back-to-school plans and to find the link for next week’s webinar.
The district will present its plan to the school board on August 12.