Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry Warren County School Board members (from left) Kevin Lindvay, Arthur Stewart, and Joe Colosimo, look over budget documents prior to approving the budget at a special meeting Monday night.

When it comes time for students to go back to school in the fall, it looks like they will return in person.

The school board did not formally approve a reopening plan at Monday’s special meeting. However, the members unanimously approved a direction for the administration in providing a final reopening plan for approval at the July 13 regular meeting.

There are changes involving screenings, cleanings, and distancing, but nothing drastic.

“This motion would have us returning to school on our regular school calendar,” board member Arthur Stewart said. School days would follow schedules as they would have prior to March. The plan would provide for “the transportation of students using the normal busing schedules that were in use prior to March 2020.”

District officials do not expect every student to be ready for school as it was. Families who do not want their students to attend the district’s brick-and-mortar buildings under those circumstances may opt for the district’s Virtual Academy.

Online instruction would not be like that provided in the fall after the closures.

“I suspect that what the public is least aware of… is the existence of our Virtual Academy,” Stewart said. That offering has been available, providing part-time and full-time academics for students, for several years and “it is very capable of delivering education to students who have to stay home due to any COVID concerns.”

“Our Virtual Academy would be expanded to offer that opportunity to any student,” he said.

The district has purchased additional equipment and is prepared to provide whatever is necessary for students to attend from home, without families having to purchase communications nor electronic equipment.

He said the motion is “in concert with the feedback” provided by community stakeholders at several focus group meetings over the past two weeks.

Superintendent Amy Stewart provided the board members with information from those focus groups.

“We do have folks with a wide variety of opinions,” she said. “In general, we heard loud and clear… that they want school to be open.”

“Now, we can start to really paint that picture,” Amy Stewart said. “You’ll be seeing on a 13th a reopening of school plan – ‘this is what school is going to look like in the fall in Warren County School District.'”

Families will have a choice between brick-and-mortar and Virtual Academy.

At need, the district will be able to move all students to a virtual situation.

“We’ll be able to pivot and have our teachers work with kids… in a completely different way that you saw in the fall,” she said. “We will be ready full-scale to go online.”

Once approved, the district’s reopening plan will be forwarded to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Unless the plan fails to live up to the guidelines set by the state, board approval is all that is required.

Amy Stewart said the views of those who attended and shared their opinions at the local focus groups is supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“The AAP strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school,” according to a statement on the AAP website. “Although many questions remain, the preponderance of evidence indicates that children and adolescents are less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, children may be less likely to become infected and to spread infection. Policies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 within schools must be balanced with the known harms to children, adolescents, families, and the community by keeping children at home.”

The academy laid out some of those “known harms.”

“The importance of in-person learning is well-documented, and there is already evidence of the negative impacts on children because of school closures in the spring of 2020,” according to the statement. “Lengthy time away from school and associated interruption of supportive services often results in social isolation, making it difficult for schools to identify and address important learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation.”