Masks not required in school.

Full athletics, band, and choir.

Distancing down to 3 feet.

Lunch in the cafeteria.

Masks required on school transportation.

With the start of the Tidioute Community Charter School year less than two weeks away — Aug. 25 is the first day for students — the board approved a health and safety plan and an athletics plan on Wednesday.

“Our school will look like it did pre-COVID,” CEO Dr. Doug Allen said. “It’s been an interesting summer. We are ready to open.”

Last year at this time, the board was approving a plan that called for taking student temperatures, masks, social distancing to six feet, eating in classrooms, no sports, no band, no choir.

“We had a plan that was very restrictive,” Allen said.

Those changes are gone.

“The new plan doesn’t have the same number of requirements,” Allen said. “It has students staying three feet apart — per the Centers for Disease Control. That’s basically back to pre-COVID.”

“We’re back to eating in the cafeteria,” he said. “As it stands, there is no requirement for masks in the school building.”

Board President Al Haney added some language to the return plan. “This board realizes the decision on whether a student wear a mask is up to the parents.”

The school will live up to the federal mandate of masks on public transportation. “Kids will be masked on the buses,” Allen said.

Contact tracing will still be conducted when a positive case is identified and students who are close contacts will have to quarantine for 10 days.

Students who are isolated or quarantined will be able to continue their education through remote learning. Only students with signed medical releases will be able to spend the whole school year in remote learning. “We’re not trying to be a cyber charter,” Allen said.

Not every board member was comfortable with the plan. “I think we’re in for a serious time,” Ronnie Weller said. “I think we have to be very careful right now. I think we need to keep the way we were before.”

The return plans were approved by a majority of the board.

COVID-related grants have brought almost $1.5 million to the school.

The latest round includes $846,000. Of that, the board approved $500,000 for new boilers to enhance ventilation in the building.