PUSD set to send TK-6 back to class on April 6
PHS graduation is on schedule with limited attendance
PARADISE >> Paradise Unified School District Superintendent Tom Taylor said on Friday afternoon that the district intends to send its TK-6 students back to classroom instruction on April 6.
Taylor said that it is a full opening and that classrooms will run from 8 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Part of the reason why Paradise can pull it off is because its class sizes are smaller in the aftermath of the Camp Fire.
Taylor noted that they have 24 classrooms that have 22 or fewer students in them, and 20 more classrooms that have 20 or fewer children in them.
He notes that those class sizes can keep the kids 4 feet apart as the CDC was recommending up until Thursday when it announced that distance has been lowered to 3 feet.
“We have the appropriate safety protocols in place,” he said, adding that with restrictions having been lessened it has given the district the ability to go to full opening.
Paradise High School will remain in the current A/B schedule that’s in place. Students in the A block go to school on Monday and Wednesday while students in the B block go to school on Tuesday and Thursday.
He said right now the high school students are there from 8:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. with a modified schedule, but he said he wants to get all of the high school students back on campus because they are struggling.
The goal he says is to get all of the district’s students back on campus in a normal instruction cycle by the fall.
Taylor says the school district is going forward with a in-person graduation at this time with limited capacity seating.
Events could change that, but he is going ahead with the idea that they are going to prepare for an inperson graduation sometime in June.
With football starting on Friday night, he said that he hopes everyone follows the rules for the sake of students, so they can not only get in a season but as normal of a graduation they can achieve.