Reopening of Schools

Norwin School District plans to begin the school year on Monday, August 31, 2020 with a hybrid operational model that balances in-person and remote learning for students.

 

Due to the current Pennsylvania Mask-Wearing Order and the physical distancing requirement, the Norwin Operational Model that will be used to begin the school year will be hybrid.

 

Highlights of the “Hybrid Operational Model” include:

 

• Starting the school year by limiting the number of students in each classroom. Students will be grouped into cohorts (“Blue” and “Gold” groups based on last name) and assigned to come to school on two designated days per week, depending on group. The other three days of each week will consist of remote learning in Google Classroom. (See table below).
• No students will come to school on Wednesdays so that schools can be sanitized.
• Staff members and students will wear face coverings to comply with the state face covering mandate.
• Classrooms will have hand sanitizer stations, and students will be provided ample time to wash hands and transition between learning spaces.
• Families may choose to transport their own children to school. Busses/van routes have been planned for efficiency to limit transit times as possible. Student seating on busses and vans will be assigned based on the order of pick-up, loading from the rear to the front of the bus. All students will be required to wear face coverings while on the bus.

As always, families can choose to enroll in the Norwin Online Academy if they are not comfortable sending their children to school under the hybrid operational model. The Norwin Online Academy (formerly known as the WIU eAcademy) is a full-service online school that is completely different from the remote instruction in Google Classroom that the District employed this past spring during the mandatory school shutdown.

 

Reopening of Schools Committee

Seventeen subcommittees have developed plans for all aspects of school operations. Their plans reflect CDC and state guidelines pertaining to the ever-changing nature of the pandemic.

The Reopening of Schools Committee's final report was submitted to the Board of Education in late July and shared with parents.

The School District greatly appreciates the time and expertise of the approximately 300 Norwin parents, educators, and community members who volunteered to serve on these 17 subcommittees of the Reopening of Schools Committee.

Parent Survey

In June, the School District sent a survey to families about the reopening of school. Each family was asked to complete one survey for each Norwin student living in the household.

A phenomenal 80 percent of recipients responded, including nearly 4,400 responses with 1,116 written comments. All schools were evenly represented in the responses.

Families’ responses to the survey are helping to guide programming decisions for a return to school.