Four days of summer break are all that stand between students at St. Joseph Catholic School and a return to the classroom.

Tuesday marks Day One, and while it continues to be an unpredictable environment, plans are in place for a successful start to the school year.

Masks are the hot button topic.

“Masks are optional,” Principal Carrie Pearson explained, with the exception of transportation, during weekly Mass and during dismissal. “When congregating as a school and in bigger groups, we feel it would be a good option.”

Pearson takes over the role vacated by the retirement of Nancy Warner at the end of last school year.

The goal, she said, is to keep health and safety at the “forefront of our decision making” with a plan that can be modified if the pandemic situation in the community requires it.

The 2021-22 school year doesn’t just mark a return to some normalcy but also some significant steps forward for St. Joseph.

Pearson highlighted a $200,000 grant award that will bring a STEM lab to the school later this fall that will foster “innovative” and “creative” resources where students will be able to develop creativity and problem-solving abilities.

The Diocese of Erie announced earlier this summer that efforts at Middle States Association accreditation have been successful.

“That’s a big process,” Pearson said. “Not every school that goes through that process receives accreditation.”

“St. Joseph runs strongly on volunteerism and family support,” she emphasized. “(We are) hoping to bring some of that back.”

With volunteers that want to be able to come in and support the students, Pearson said they’re working on a volunteer schedule to facilitate that involvement. “(We are) happy to have them come back in a limited capacity.”

The school had offered a virtual option for the 2020-21 school year but that won’t continue this fall.

“No one was set up for that,” she said. “Teachers (were) doing double the work.”

She added that though that decisions made regarding individual quarantine situations will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Part of that decision making, though, is the value of in-person instruction.

“Building that rapport with them is so important,” Pearson said, highlighting the value of “being able to connect.

“That’s how you build a relationship with (the students),” she said. “Of course there’s constantly that monitoring and checking over their shoulder in those moments that happen all day long.”

In the Catholic setting, specifically, that rapport and community is important.

“For us, going to Mass together, praying together, those moments through the day are what makes us a Catholic school. That’s a powerful thing and our purpose.”