District 20 high school and middle school student to return to campus under new hybrid format
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- It’s been nearly six months since middle school and high school students in District 20 have been on campus.
Come Monday, September 14, they’ll finally make their big return.
Elementary school students in District 20 have been back on campus since August, but it hasn't been smooth sailing.
New quarantines at different schools have been reported each week since their reopening, with 150 students and staff quarantined in just the past couple of days.
One positive case of COVID-19 has been confirmed in District 20.
Still, district leaders say they feel confident in bringing back the over 11,000 high school and middle school to their campuses.
However, each student will only be on campus two days a week.
Under this new hybrid format, only half of the student body at each school will come in on Mondays and Tuesdays. Same with Thursdays and Fridays.
On Wednesdays, all high school and middle school students will work remotely.
District leaders say this new format is their best shot at limiting contact on secondary campuses.
Allison Cortez, Chief of Communications for Academy District 20, says the reopening of high schools and middle schools presents more challenges than elementary schools did, as it's harder to cohort students on secondary campuses.
"They felt comfortable bringing elementary students back because we could cohort them really tightly, in groups as small as five, ten, fifteen students," says Cortez.
Cortez says they're not anticipating all students learning remotely, to start on the new hybrid format.
“We have almost a little more than 2,000 students enrolled in our online kindergarten through the Eighth [Grade] program. They’re going to stay home, they’re not coming back next week, they’ve chosen to completely stay home,” says Cortez.
Students at every grade level in District 20 have the option of learning from home, either at their own pace or in real-time with their peers in the classroom.
At the end of every quarter, those students do have the option to return to in-person learning.
