Canon-McMillan Offers Return-To-Classroom Plan

The Canon-McMillan School Board was presented a plan from their Pandemic Planning Team to return students to full time classroom education. The 30 minute presentation weighed pros and cons of staying in the current hybrid learning model and moving to a full time model. The team presented their findings about managing the spread of coronavirus and how contact tracing would be more difficult in a full time model if an outbreak was to occur. They explained that social distancing would be much more difficult. The team did recognize that a return to full time in class teaching would be beneficial to the students from the participation aspect as well as mental and physical well being. The team recommended a January 19, 2021 return to classrooms on a four day a week schedule, keeping Wednesdays as remote learning days to allow building sanitization. The reaction from the public was not favorable. Seven people stood up to comment about how their students are not performing up to normal standards from when they were in school full time. One commenter was a high school freshman who related his difficulty when learning at home versus his better performance when in the classroom. Several comments were made about neighboring schools like Trinity, Chartiers-Houston and Peters Township having success with their five day a week schedules.