Collierville High to offer 4 in-person days a week
Collierville High School will move away from its hybrid plan in the new year, offering in-person learning four days a week for all students, the district announced Monday. Changes will take effect on Jan. 6.
All students who are currently on the hybrid schedule will come to school Monday-thursday, instead of only two days weekly. All students will still learn virtually on Fridays.
Students who are currently learning virtually can continue with virtual learning five days each week or return in-person.
Any student who wants to swap from in-person to virtual or from virtual to in-person will need to fill out a form to do so by Nov. 2.
Moving to a four days of in-person learning will impact scheduling and current COVID-19 protocols.
Students may have new schedules or teachers when they return on Jan. 6, and the district says it will communicate those changes as soon as possible. It will take 4-6 weeks to reorganize and restructure the learning schedule, the district said.
Part of those updates include reconfiguring arrival and dismissal times, as well as lunch procedures, and evaluating those new schedules against health, safety and sanitation plans around COVID-19.
Under the new plans, students will be social distanced between 3 and 6 feet, the district said, based on student enrollment in each classroom.
The district initially implemented a hybrid plan in the fall after citing the Shelby County Health Department’s recommendation of social distancing 6 feet rather than the 3 feet its plan had been based upon. The health department, which has maintained that it will only provide technical assistance to schools and not decide whether the schools should open or close, has further clarified its position in updates to the most recent health directive. In the new directive, rather than binding K-12 schools to any and all state guidance, local districts are required to consult the guidance.
In updating its directive, the department said it was aligning its own language with that of Gov. Bill Lee’s office.
“The Shelby County Health Department recommends “Best Practices” and provides guidance and technical assistance. It is the school officials who decide the policies their school will operate under. This includes masking and social distancing,” Alisa Haushalter, director of the health department, said at the time. “We believe that the ‘Best Practice’ is for everyone (including students, teachers, staff ) to wear face masks and practice 6 feet social distancing in order to decrease the risk of COVID-19 transmission.”
In its announcement, the district reiterated that it cannot guarantee 6 feet of social distancing, but will continue other mitigation policies, including: “frequent handwashing, mask wearing at all times, one-way hallway markers, staggered class dismissals, and the athome wellness check form prior to arriving to school.”
“As a reminder, with the new 4-days of in-person learning, Collierville Schools cannot guarantee 6 feet of social distancing at the high school,” per the announcement. “If you are not comfortable with this expectation, please remember the CVA program (Collierville Virtual Academy) is available for those wishing to make a change for the second semester.”
COVID-19 data for all Tennessee schools was not available Monday evening, as the dashboard was being “refreshed with updated data submissions.” The high school was one of a handful of Tennessee schools that closed its doors and moved to virtual learning for two weeks due to COVID-19 cases, as of mid-september.
Students can continue with virtual learning five days each week or return for four in-person.