The school district presently plans for the following elementary and secondary schedules as we return.
Elementary
- All students every day.
- Somewhat shorter day for students; same length of day for staff. Here is a tentative elementary schedule for in-person and virtual education.
- Students in socially distanced groups (pods) and masked (with mask breaks) with their teachers for core subjects during the first ½ of the day. For the second ½ of the day, these students remain in their classroom and receive lunch, one special, a recess or downtime, work in support of the other half of the day’s teaching for ½ day, with a supervising adult.
- After the first half of the day, teachers will move to the second classroom and second group of students to teach the core subjects.
- Four day rotation for specials…art, music, physical education, library
- Students eat lunch in the classroom.
- Teachers have 45 min of planning time each day.
- Students with the most intense disabilities will meet every day
Secondary 6 – 12
- One third of high school/middle school students would come to the buildings on any given day. The other students would connect virtually to their classes at the same time. Periods would be 40 minutes each.
- All students would be using virtual education on Wednesdays. Periods would be 20 minutes each.
- Students would be divided into three groups – Crimson, Strong and Tartans – based on their last names. Crimson will be last names of A-G, Strong will be last names of H-O and Tartans will be last names of P-Z.
- Each group would be in school on a rotating basis for four days every three weeks as described on this schedule.
- Here is the High School schedule, February-June 2021;
- Here is the Middle School schedule, February-June 2021. The schedules are also posted on the website’s web calendar.
- Teachers teach their regular schedule so the days students are virtual, they are still learning from their assigned teacher
- Students in grades 6 – 8 will eat in the large gym and students in grades 9 – 12 will eat in the cafeterias
- Some programs for students with the most intensive needs will meet in-person daily; we are still determining what will happen with other programs.
The school district continues to plan for a virtual option for students who do not return for in-person instruction. While we believe we will be able to provide a fully virtual experience for those students, it may be with our staff or potentially, with a staff member from another school district and in concert with a regional approach being developed through Capital Region BOCES and its 24 component school districts. A regional approach has the benefit of making more courses available, particularly at the secondary level.
Families will be asked to make a commitment regardless of whether they choose in-person or virtual learning. Changes – either from in-person to virtual or virtual to in-person – will only be made at the end of the quarters for HS/MS students (Nov. 13, Jan. 30 or April 23) or the end of the trimester for elementary students (Dec. 4 or March 3). It would be too difficult at other times to accommodate changes with transportation while maintaining social distancing in classrooms and not exceeding the maximum number of students in a classroom.
For information about how school schedule information will be communicated to students, families and staff members, visit the Communication/Family and Community Engagement section of our reopening plan.