Fall coming into focus for school districts planning around pandemic

FOX 2 - As cities all across metro Detroit look to emerge out of the Shelter At Home Order, school districts are busy planning for what fall classes will look like.

The Troy School District working with a number of resources to determine what's best for about 13,000 students in attendance.

"Right now we're preparing for any number of scenarios in the fall that could include an extension of the current remote learning," said Dr. Rich Machesky, Troy schools superintendent. "Our hope is that it will include having students in seat,in the fall in some format or another."

But in nearby West Bloomfield the plan for fall provides three different roadmaps for returning to school including:

•  A completely online option. 
• A remote learning continuation (modeling the school year since mid-March).
• Blended Instruction.

"Under our plan, 50 percent of the students would come - let's say, on Monday and Tuesday," said Dr. Gerald Hill, West Bloomfield School District. "The other 50 percent in any given grade level would be at home, and then on Wednesday all of the students would be remote and we would use Wednesday for cleaning the facilities and then the next group of students 50 percent, would come in on Thursday and Friday."

Detroit Public Schools Community District also working on its plan. The district released a statement to FOX 2: 

"It fully intends for students to return to school for face-to-face instruction as scheduled after Labor Day. After the School Board reviews those updated plans, they will be vetted with parents, students, school leaders, teachers and community members for feedback during the first week in June. "

All three districts say they will work with local and state health departments to get guidance on testing and temperature checks for those entering school buildings.

Of course that leads to an issue of the need for an increased budget. School officials want state and federal governments to get them the funding they need.

"Do their part and get the funding to the local agencies so that we don't have to be cutting our budget by millions of dollars and trying to implement a plan that's going to be more costly than we historically teach children," Hill said.

The entire statement released by DPSCD is below:

"The Superintendent has reviewed preliminary plans for all employees returning to district offices and schools if and when the Safe at Home order is lifted. The same has been done for students returning in the summer for a combination of face to face instruction and online learning. The district fully intends for students to return to school for face to face instruction as scheduled after Labor Day. After the School Board reviews those updated plans they will be vetted with parents, students, school leaders, teachers, and community members for feedback during the first week in June. Final plans will be released in mid-June. The impact of COIVD on Detroit has been disproportionally negative as compared to other districts and cities throughout Michigan and the country so it will be important that our plans be medically sound, safe, and transparent.

"Our preliminary plans are likely to include initial and required COVID testing of employees before return to the workplace, daily temperature checks for employees and students, and an employee and student self-assessment for COVID symptoms. We plan to increase teacher hiring to lower class sizes, limit the total number of individuals in buildings at once (especially large high schools), limit the congregation of students in the hallways/cafeteria, and require the use of masks. We also envision blended learning models (in school and home) with alternating schedules for high school students."