Crane eyeing Oct. 1 for classroom return

While no date has been set in stone, Crane School District proposed Oct. 1 as a hypothetical target date for the return to in-person, teacher-led instruction.

The timeline was proposed during the district governing board’s regular meeting Tuesday evening and called for the scheduling of a special meeting at a later date to further discuss and establish a concrete date for reopening.

“I want to remind everyone that this is simply a hypothetical example of a proposed timeline and in no way (suggests) that a decision has been made that identifies a specific date to reopen our schools for traditional in-person, teacher-led, classroom instruction,” said Superintendent Laurie Doering. “This is for illustrative purposes only to help communicate our intended reopening strategy.”

According to Doering, when schools do resume in-person learning, the district will continue to offer online-only instruction via the Crane iLearning Academy as well as a remote, school-connected learning model where resources are available as outlined in the Crane Mitigation Plan, available at craneschools. org/Fall20201.aspx.

Last week, families desiring to continue remote learning through the rest of the semester submitted applications for approval to do so. Families should expect to hear whether their application was accepted or declined by Sept. 14, according to Doering.

Due to the district’s lack of physical capacity and available staffing, a hybrid learning option is not available at this time. For this reason, Crane’s transition to a traditional, five-day per week in-person learning environment will be based on Yuma County’s status in meeting the “minimal” benchmark criteria set by the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), which differs from the “moderate” benchmarks districts implementing a hybrid model are following in requiring COVID-19 case counts to be fewer than 10 per 100,000 residents with the overall positivity rate and percentage of COVID-related hospital visits falling at or below 5% for two consecutive weeks.

According to the data released by ADHS last Thursday, Yuma County’s case counts account for 47 per 100,000 individuals, while the week of Aug. 16 marked the county’s first week of maintaining a positivity rate below 5%. The minimal benchmark for hospital visits has been met, according to the data, as 2.7% of Yuma County’s hospital visits were reportedly COVID-related.

This data is updated weekly at azdhs.gov/ covid19.

“As noted before, school leaders are not public health officials,” said Doering. “Guidance in this area is not only invaluable, but also the most prudent course (of action). Although the statistics in our county are not yet favorable to safely resume in-person, traditional instruction, the data is heading in the right direction.”

According to Doering, the district is cognizant that community transmission of COVID-19 may change upon Crane’s return to in-person instruction, presenting positive cases to its schools. Should this scenario occur, the district will work with the Yuma County Public Health Services District to determine potential closures. Students returning to in-person learning will be encouraged to take their iPads home nightly in the “unfortunate event” that a closure occurs and the district reverts to distance learning.

“(These decisions) are complex, multifaceted and filled with uncertainty, yet I trust the advice from our health care community (with whom) are collaboratively planning a systematic structure to make decisions regarding opening our schools,” said Doering.

Families are encouraged to provide their schools with up-to-date contact information to receive updates on the district’s physical reopening. Updates are also posted to craneschools.org and all Crane social media platforms.

A recorded version of Tuesday’s meeting will be available at craneschools. org/CESDLive.aspx by 5 p.m. Friday.