Kiski Area now allowing 4 days of in-person learning

Schools across the region are shutting their doors, but Kiski Area School District is increasing face-to-face instruction time.

The district began offering a hybrid option this week that allows for four days of in-person instruction with one day of remote learning. This option is available in addition to the district’s 100% online option and the previously existing hybrid model, which allows for two days of in-person instruction and three days of remote learning.

The change comes the same week that Kiski Area temporarily moved its high school to fully remote learning, after seven cases of covid-19 were reported among students and staff. The high school wasn’t the only one in the region to take such measures. In the last several days, several schools have temporarily closed buildings, and some districts have moved entirely online amid surging infections and hospitalizations.

The district sent a survey to parents last week to gauge how many were interested in the four-day option, knowing that it could lead to more students in classrooms and thus make social distancing more challenging. But Superintendent Tim Scott said that after the first day with the model in place, each building in the district hit about 50% capacity.

“Obviously we’re doing this because we want more kids in school, but logistically we were all a little nervous about exactly how many (students) were going to show up,” Scott said after the first day offering the model. “It was a pleasant surprise.”

Kiski Area had pitched the four-day plan last month and had originally hoped to implement it Nov. 2, at the start of the second quarter; but increased community transmission of covid-19 in Westmoreland County caused a delay.

Pennsylvania’s Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard calculates the level of community transmission for each county in the state, recommending that schools move online if the covid-19 incidence rate rises above 100 cases per 100,000 residents. Westmoreland County is now at 144 cases per 100,000 residents, according to the dashboard.

In October, Scott said the incidence rate within Kiski Area ZIP codes were much lower than that of Westmoreland County as a whole. The transmission rate and positivity rate within the district has actually increased since then, he said Monday.

Scott acknowledged that this seems contradictory and may cause confusion. But studies and contact tracing show very few covid-19 cases linked to classroom transmission, and Scott said district leaders still wanted to offer as much face-to-face instruction as possible, especially for younger students with a lower risk of infection and higher risk of long-term learning loss.

“It just means we really have to stay on top of it and hopefully make some good decisions,” he said. “I think the flexibility is important so we can focus on the value of allowing kids to come into school.”

Dawn Lane, mother to a fifth- and sixth grader in the district, said it does make her nervous to send her children back for more days, to a higher student population, just ahead of cold and flu season. She said she’s confident in the mitigation strategies the schools have put in place, and she’s overwhelmingly relieved her kids can have more time in the classroom. She said their morale has already improved significantly, and her youngest has gotten to see her best friend, who has been in a different cohort since last year.

“They’re following the guidelines but they’re still trying to keep us open,” Lane said. “I am so thankful that Kiski is giving these chances.”

Scott said it felt important to start offering four days in-person before Thanksgiving – just in case schools are forced to implement tighter restrictions in the event cases spike further as a result of holiday celebrations, as some experts predict might happen.

“If we can stack up days of having kids in school, let’s go ahead and do it,” he said, “because you just don’t know how long it will last.”