CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — After one month of school, in a very challenging year with unprecedented issues due to the coronavirus, several school districts have decided they are ready to start having kids in their school buildings.
This comes as the infection rate in Western New York remains low and flu season is fast approaching.
In the Maryvale School District, school officials had planned to be remote until after Thanksgiving, but the district has decided to speed up its process of bringing kids back into school.
A big factor in deciding to do that is the offering of rapid testing from the Erie County Health Department, which was announced last week.
Maryvale Schools is in the process of installing plastic shields, hand sanitizer stations, and thermal temperature scanners at every school entrance. The district also plans to start welcoming kids back to school starting with special needs students a little over a week from now on October 19.
"We've been looking forward to the time to bring our students back all along we've evaluated five different factors," Maryvale superintendent Joseph D'Angelo said.
Those factors include personal protection equipment, current health conditions, staffing, transportation and rapid testing.
"When the issues surrounding those factors evolved to a point where they're no longer a limiting factor to begin our hybrid model that's when we decided to accelerate and bring students back sooner," D'Angelo said.
Elementary students are expected back at the beginning of next month, with students in higher grades expected back about a month from now.
Other districts that started out 100 percent remote are in the process of moving to a hybrid model -- in Ken-Ton Pre-K to first graders and special needs students return next week, also happening then, Williamsville will bring back fifth and sixth graders and in West Seneca, grades K-5 are expected back next month.
"I know there's been some questions about what exactly is the hybrid going to look like to some degree as I mentioned in my video last week it's going to be dictated by the number of students that are interested," said West Seneca school superintendent Matthew Bystrak.
In Maryvale, the school superintendent reminds families they still can do virtual learning if they choose.
In Buffalo, which also started virtually, the district is considering phasing students back into classrooms.
Maryvale will host a several town halls beginning next week for parents to get the latest reopening information. Those dates are as follows: Primary: October 14; Intermediate: October 15; Middle: October 26; High: October 27.
