The Fairfax County School board is gathering surveys from student families as well as faculty and staff about what the upcoming school year should look like.
Monday afternoon, the school board held a work session to talk about the scenarios.
“We have spent a lot of time working very hard with our return to school task force to gather input and feedback,” said Dr. Scott Brabrand, the school district's superintendent.
The scenarios include virtual learning for all, in-school learning with health and social distancing requirements, and online learning (for individual medical needs).
Virtual learning would be used in the event of a resurgence of COVID-19 that would force schools to close.
Instruction would be delivered through distance learning, including expanded digital access and digital curriculum resources.
The school district is ordering 22,000 additional laptops.
In-school learning would allow 50% or 25% of students to return to the classroom. Students would go to class every other day. Social distancing would be required.
“We are talking about kids [from different grades] going through separate entrances,” said Dr. Brabrand.
The school district is also talking about having one student per seat or every other seat on school buses, having one-way traffic patterns in hallways, and expanding child care.
The more controversial proposal is coming from the Commonwealth-- daily form for parents to fill out in order to update schools about their student's health.
“We’ve asked the state for guidance. We are going to hope to get something from them and if not, we are going to come up with something that makes sense,” said Dr. Brabrand.
The Fairfax County Health Department will monitor the pandemic and determine what changes need to be made throughout the school year to protect the community; from quarantining classrooms to closing schools.
School leaders expect to make a decision about the plan they are moving forward with by June 26th.