In the Keys, all students can return to classrooms full time on March 29

The Monroe County School District on Tuesday said it will offer full-time, in-person instruction for all students starting March 29 in response to a state order.

But Superintendent Theresa Axford said the schools may have trouble maintaining social distancing in classes. “While we will do our best to make this a safe transition, please be aware we may have difficulty ensuring students maintain a safe distance from one another while they are attending classes in-person,” Axford said in a statement.

Sixty-eight percent of Monroe students attend in-person school daily, according to Axford. Tuesday, the district’s total enrollment was 8,741. Monroe, unlike other South Florida districts, has had students in grades 6-12 dividing time between classes in school buildings and learning remotely.

On Friday, Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran sent a letter to Axford saying a state emergency order requires school districts to open school buildings at least five days a week for students who choose inperson instruction.

Axford said Tuesday her priority has always been to return all students to fulltime, in-person classes but that the district still has concerns about the spread of COVID-19. “We have not done this before because issues of community spread and juvenile transmission rates have dictated otherwise,” she said. Those factors “remain issues for our district.”

After closing school buildings and starting remote learning in midMarch last year, Monroe schools fully reopened Sept. 14 to students in pre-K-grade 5 who wanted to return to the classroom. But students in grades 6 through 12 returned to school buildings on a parttime basis, attending virtual school on days they aren’t in the classroom in what the district calls an “A/B” schedule.

Social distancing won’t work with the larger grades, said Holly Hummell-Gorman, president of United Teachers of Monroe, the teachers’ union. “That’s going to be impossible,” she said. “You can’t have a minimum of 6 feet of social distancing with all the students there because we don’t have enough space and we don’t have enough staff.”

The district is asking parents to complete a survey about their plans for their child’s attendance at school.