Hood River Schools outline plans for phased-in return to in-person school March 8

HRCSD is planning to reopen its schools for in-person instruction on that date, beginning with its youngest students and adding grade levels over time. It will be one week shy of a year since the district, like most around the state, had to shut its schools and shift to Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL). In January, the district started Limited In-Person Instruction for about 40 students per elementary school campus.

Starting next month, the district will phase in reintroducing most elementary students to in-person learning, with the target of getting upper-grade students back on campus in April.

Saying, “There is clearly an urgency; the school board and I are committed to a safe return to school,” Polkinghorn told the Hood River County School Board in its Feb. 17 meeting, “Our urgency will not compromise our safety. We are certainly close. We are not ready yet.”

Polkinghorn said in a letter to families last week that the district’s phase-in approach is following the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) recommendations for returning to in-person instruction. An online meeting Feb. 18 offered the chance for families to hear directly about the district’s in-person return planning. Most staff returned to campuses on Feb,. 22, and the district plans to bring K-1 students on campus March 8 and students grades K-3 by March 15. On March 29, after the March 22-26 Spring Break, the district plans to bring back students in grades K-5, 6, and 9.

“We have a pathway to getting middle school and high school kids back on campus and that’s what we are trying to do,” by April 5, according to Polkinghorn.

In the letter to parents, Polkinghorn noted that “Hood River County Health Department supports HRCSD in providing on-site learning to elementary students, provided that all schools followed closely the health and safety protocols in the Operational Blueprints. To prepare for reopening schools as soon as it was possible, HRCSD staff developed these blueprints and the county health department and school board of directors reviewed the plans prior to their submission to ODE. HRCSD staff are reviewing these blueprints against the updated RSSL guidance announced in mid-January 2021 to ensure HRCSD schools meet and/or exceed the health and safety protocols required by the state.”

At the start the district will hold half-day sessions.

“We do need the time and we need the staff and we need to be planful about bringing all these kids back onto campus, and to do that we need to have all our staff have the opportunity to get vaccinations,” Polkinghorn said. That opportunity had happened by Feb. 4, and the district worked with County Health to provide focused vaccination clinics in early February. The second round of vaccinations for educators started Feb. 22 (most inoculations involve two shots, about two weeks apart). Polkinghorn said that by March 5, “all employees choosing to be vaccinated should be fully vaccinated, pending vaccine availability.”

May Street Principal Kelly Beard said the principals have proposed a partial day that would “be in line with 7:45 to 11:45 a.m., closer to two-thirds of a day,” he said. “We have proposed this because we would be ready if there is a need to draw-back, responding to outbreaks and moving back and forth to comprehensive distance learning (CDL) and onsite. We want to begin with a schedule that mirrors what are doing in CDL.

“We have contractual agreements with staff requiring breaks and a minimum number of minutes of duty-free lunches and prep time during student day,” Beard said. Starting with a schedule ending at 2:10 p.m. would only yield about an hour more education time, he said.

“Starting out a partial day makes real sense to us as educators,” Beard said.