Pen Argyl, Wilson set 5-day classes

Two more Lehigh Valley schools are bringing more students back for five days of in-person instruction this month.

Monday night, Pen Argyl Area School Board approved the administration’s recommendation to give kindergarten through eighth graders the option to return to school five days a week beginning next Monday. The district is in a hybrid learning model, which high school students will continue.

Also last Monday, the Wilson Area School District administration announced in a letter to parents that all kindergarten through eighth-grade students in hybrid learning will pivot to five-day in-person instruction beginning March 22. Wilson, too, had been in an entirely hybrid learning model this year.

Wilson’s school board will approve this revision to the health and safety plan at its March 15 board meeting, Superintendent Douglas Wagner said.

The district will limit in-person class sizes to maintain physical distancing, the letter states. If space permits, after spring break, some online students may be allowed to transfer into in-person learning, and those who are denied will be placed on a waiting list.

A year into the pandemic, most Lehigh Valley school districts have made a plan to phase students into four or five days of in-person instruction, after spending most of the school year in hybrid learning. But some of the Valley’s largest school districts — Parkland, Bethlehem and Allentown — have yet to solidify similar plans.

—