■ Norwich Public Schools will return to full in-person learning on Monday.

Students set to return to class five days a week

— Norwich Public Schools will return to five days of in-person learning starting Monday for all students in preschool through eighth grade for the first time since March 12, 2020, Superintendent Kristen Stringfellow announced to parents and staff Friday.

She said requests for fully remote learning still will be honored, but the model for remote learning will be drastically different.

“The greatest impact is the change in our remote learning pattern,” Stringfellow said during a teleconference with city department heads, state legislators and human services agencies. “We had remote learning that was state-of-the-art.”

Under the two-day hybrid model, only four to six students would be in a classroom at one time, allowing the teacher to offer live, on-screen lessons to students in remote learning. Stringfellow said she felt it was important to have students be able to see their classmates and their teachers during live classes.

The changes coming Monday “are creating a lot of angst for remote learning parents,” Stringfellow said. She said many remote learners either have medical conditions themselves or live with a medically compromised family member.

“Unfortunately, now with most of our learners returning to in-school instruction the former model could not be feasible unless we doubled our workforce which as you know would be impossible,” Stringfellow wrote in the letter to parents and staff Friday.

The percentage of students who remain in fully remote learning varies by school, ranging from 17.7% at the Thomas Mahan School to nearly 40% at the Kelly STEAM Magnet Middle School.

The new remote learning model, with posted lessons and assignments, meets the state Department of Education standards and is the type of remote learning model most students in Connecticut and the country have had for the past year, Stringfellow said.

Norwich Free Academy Head of School Brian Kelly said Friday that NFA will remain in a two-day hybrid model at least through spring vacation the week of April 12-16. By then, most of the NFA teachers, administrators and staff will have been vaccinated against the coronavirus. NFA hosted an on-campus first-dose vaccine clinic Friday for about 200 school staff members.