Teays Valley tackles first day of school with a hybrid model
ASHVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) — The Teays Valley School District welcomed students back into the classroom Monday morning…or at least, half of their students.
The district has adopted a hybrid model of in-person and online learning for the first nine weeks of the new school year.
“Half our students, last name A through K, will come Monday and Tuesday and the other half, L through Z, will come Thursdays and Fridays,” said Julie DeLisio, communications director with the Teays Valley School District.
During the three days of the week students are not in class, they will still be learning online.
“They’ll log into their Chromebooks onto what we call our Schoology accounts and from there, they’ll have the information, assignments, lessons posted on there from their teachers,” DeLisio said.
All students will be online on Wednesdays so the district will perform extra sanitizing measures during that day.
The hybrid model allows students to be spread out and follow social distancing guidelines.
“We’re keeping students as far apart as we can,” DeLisio said. “You’ll notice our desks, some of the desks are marked with Xs to keep students with the best social distancing that we can.”
The district has been working on the plan since the end of the last school year, updating and adapting it as guidelines change.
“We started ordering masks way back then,” DeLisio said. “Obviously, getting on top of hand sanitizers and then just getting ready for the technology piece for if students would need to learn from home. So, we started preparing for all that way back in May. We had a task force that met – administrators, teachers, custodial staff, bus drivers – all involved on that task force. ”
Some classrooms Monday had as few as seven students inside them.
But despite the differences, students and staff were happy to be back after the last school year ended unexpectedly.
“They didn’t even get to say goodbye to their friends and teachers back in March because we all thought we’d be back at the end of March and that didn’t happen,” DeLIsio said. “So, we’re just excited to get another school year underway and stay positive and hope we can get back to some normalcy pretty soon.”
The district said it will evaluate the hybrid model and make a decision on any changes for the second quarter before it starts in mid-October.
The district added the only change to the current model during the current quarter would be if Pickaway County is designated a level 4 or purple county under Gov. DeWine’s advisory system, which would then switch to an all-remote learning plan.