Warren schools to keep hybrid lineup | News, Sports, Jobs

WARREN — Warren City School officials plan to keep the second nine-week period on the hybrid-learning schedule and will review the state of the viral pandemic here and in Ohio before deciding on returning students to the classroom five days a week at the start of the second semester in January.

Superintendent Steve Chiaro told the school board Tuesday he has received numerous calls from parents about future plans.

“Just like what we were dealing with in July and August when planning for the new school year, we can’t make these decisions until we see what is happening in the county. There have been plans to bring the K-4 students back to school four days a week, and we worked on class sizes, shield guards on the desks, transportation routes. We had all of this in place and were working with the local health department and on the day we were going to launch this information Trumbull County went red again due to the coronavirus,” Chiaro said.

He said local health officials advised against making the changes.

“It is my goal to get students back to school five days a week. If we can do it in phases, it may work, but the time to do that is just not now. This will remain the district’s goal, but this is not the week to do this as virus cases are at a high point and bringing students back to school other than our current model is just not the best decision that we can make at this standpoint,” Chiaro said,

Chiaro and district officials plan to use the period of Thanksgiving through the end of December to decide how to proceed when the second half of the school year starts in January.

“We may continue the current model of education we are doing now through the end of the school year. If conditions change and improve we may be able to bring students back to more than two days a week. But if the conditions we have today are the same conditions we have in January nothing will be changed,” Chiaro said.

Staff member Nicholas Wagner, who is on the school athletic council, said the district is concluding the fall sports and will begin addressing winter sports by focusing on guidelines to participate. The athletic council meets Thursday to discuss what winter sports will be held and what ones are modified.

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