Fox C-6 School District students in kindergarten through second grade will have to wait at least another month before they begin attending in-person classes four days a week.
Currently, 77 percent of the district’s 10,981 students attend in-person classes two days a week and learn from home online the other three days.
The other 23 percent of students learn entirely from home online.
However, district officials have announced plans to begin extending the number of days students may attend in-person classes, starting with the youngest students and adding other groups later.
During the Fox Board of Education meeting on Tuesday (Oct. 6), Superintendent Nisha Patel announced the earliest the district’s youngest students may start four-day-a-week, in-person instruction likely would be Nov. 9.
On Sept. 24, Patel had sent a letter to Fox parents saying the district was looking at starting four-day, in-person instruction four the youngest students in mid-October. However, on Tuesday, Patel said the delay was necessary to allow Fox more time to prepare for the transition.
Families with children in kindergarten through second grade will have a week, starting today (Oct. 7), to let the district know if their children will attend the four-day, in-person instruction or receive all-virtual instruction.
Patel also said there’s a plan to phase in older students for the four-day-a-week, in-class instruction.
“Three weeks later, we would bring third grade, fourth grade and fifth grade back” she said. “Once we get the first group in, then it can roll out a little easier. We want to be very thorough in making sure the first group that comes in has everything done right.”
The Fox district began the 2020-2021 school year on Aug. 27, with about half of the students who are enrolled in-person classes attending on Monday and Tuesday and the other half on Thursday and Friday, with those students learning from home the rest of the school week.
The district has 2,835 students in kindergarten through second grade. Of those, 2,483 attend classes in the hybrid model (two days in class and three days at home), and 375 are enrolled in the district’s Virtual Academy, learning at home online, according to Patel’s board presentation.
As of today, Fox reported on its website that one elementary-age student is not attending classes after testing positive for COVID-19, and 23 elementary-age students are in quarantine because of possible contact with the virus.
Two staff members at the district’s elementary schools are currently not at work because of testing positive for COVID-19, and eight staff members from elementary schools are in quarantine, according to the district.
Patel also said a number of factors will be considered before the number of in-person classes are extended. For example, she said the district will not increase in-person instruction if Jefferson County is in the red level on the Jefferson County Health Department’s four-color COVID-19 warning system.
The red level is the highest level on the system and indicates widespread uncontrolled community transmission. The level calls for additional mitigation efforts to control the spread of the virus.
Today the Health Department has the county in the orange level, which is the second highest level.
The main indicator used to determine the color level is the seven-day rolling average of cases per day per 100,000 residents.
The orange level indicates the county, which has a population of about 225,000, is seeing between 10 to 24 cases per 100,000 people per day.
The county is moved to the red level if it has 25 or more cases per day per 100,000 people.
