Area schools returning to in-person learning

After a year of distance and hybrid learning, area students in all grades are heading back to the classroom.

State officials recently announced that getting all Minnesota students back into the classroom is a priority, provided district follow guidelines from the Minnesota Department of Health.

Local school districts have followed a changing schedule of plans over the past year. All schools in Minnesota were closed to in-person classes last March and school districts finished the 2019-2020 school year with distance learning.

Since the start of the 2020-2021 school year in September schools have moved at various times from distance to hybrid and back again. Most area elementary students have been in-person for several months while older students have been primarily in hybrid schedules where some days were spent in-person and other days in distance learning.

The Hayfield School District moved to in-person classes for all students in late January.

Kasson-Mantorville Schools have been transitioning to all in-person classes and as of March 1 all students, pre-k, special education and kindergarten through 12^th grade will be in person.

Triton students will also be all in-person starting March 8. Students in Triton will be attending classes in-person Monday through Thursdays with Fridays continuing to be distance learning days.

When students return to classes they will continue to follow the odd-even block learning schedule they followed during hybrid learning. On odd block days periods 1, 3, 5 and 7 will meet and on even block days periods 2, 4, 6 and 8 will meet.

Byron will begin the transition to in-person learning on March 8 when grades 11 and 12 at Byron High School return to an all in-person model and grade 8 in the middle school returns to in-person instruction.

Beginning March 15 all Byron High School students, grades 9-12 will be meeting in-person and grades 6 through 8 at the middle school will be in-person.

There will be no school for students in grades 6-12 on February 26 and March 5. Those days will be used as staff planning days.

Because of the requirements for reduced capacity on school buses, Supt. Joey Page said, there will be no changes to the current transportation model. That means, he said, that students who had been attending classes on a hybrid model will not have district transportation on days they were not scheduled to attend classes.

Schools officials made the decisions to return to in-person classes with the approval of the Regional Support Teams that includes public health officials.