ROCKLIN, Calif. — The Rocklin Unified School District welcomed students back to the physical classroom for the first time in six months.
The district was forced to close its schools last March due to the coronavirus pandemic and move to all online “crisis” learning, as district officials called it.
Now, the number of new coronavirus infections and deaths in Placer County are low enough that schools may re-open fully for in-person instruction, according to California’s blueprint for re-opening.
The Rocklin Unified School District (RUSD) will be undergoing a phased re-opening plan. The district has more than 10,000 students enrolled but nearly 15% or nearly 1,400 will continue all distance or virtual learning as school begins, an option that's being given to families who don’t feel comfortable sending their students back.
Much of the rest will attend classes through a hybrid model where they attend in-person classes for part of the week and attend virtual classes from home during the other part. These students are being split into “A” and “B” groups to divide the days of the week they will attend in-person classes. Transitional Kindergarten through 1st-grade students will attend classes five days a week in either the morning or afternoon.
Scott Collins is the principal for RUSD’s Spring View Middle School which began in-person classes Monday.
“We felt really good about it and the protocols we had in place were very effective,” Collins said. “So, I don’t have any new insights after one day, but you know tomorrow will come. We’re gonna roll with the punches and we’re gonna solve the problems as they come up and we’re gonna do the very best we can to educate the kids in our community.”
The RUSD school board will revisit the learning plans when the quarter ends at the end of September. The school board may keep or change the learning plans then.
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