District plans fully in-person classes Feb. 16

Kirtland Schools Superintendent Chad VanArnhem announced this week that the district will return to a fully in-person learning model beginning Feb. 16.

Schools have gone through several shifts in learning modality over just the past several weeks. Classes transitioned from hybrid to a fully remote model from Jan. 25 to Feb. 3 due to a spike in positive coronavirus cases among teachers and students and then shifted back to a hybrid model up to this point.

VanArnhem explained in an announcement video sent out to Kirtland families that the district has seen COVID-19 cases drop back down to the point that they are ready to bring students back to classes every

day.

“Good news — our COVID cases in our community of Kirtland, surrounding cities, and Lake County are down significantly,” VanArnhem said in the video. “The number of cases in our schools have dropped for students and staff significantly. So the plan will be on Tuesday after Presidents Day we will return to

the all-in model here at the Kirtland schools.”

The plan to go “all-in” marks a return to Kirtland’s initial return-to-school plan when the 2020-21 school year began. At that time the majority of students were attending school in person, while the other chose to remain exclusively remote.

“We’re excited to see everyone back here in school,

and our students that are set up virtually will continue in that model as well,” VanArnhem said.

The superintendent said in the announcement he was also excited to inform families that over 140 members of the Kirtland school staff are currently signed up to receive their first round of the COVID-19 vaccination at the end of February.

VanArnhem