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Roseburg Middle and High Schools Move to Hybrid Model

It has been almost a full year since Roseburg High School and Jo Lane and Fremont middle schools have had students fill the halls, but on Monday, Feb. 1, students returned with an entirely new model. Roseburg Public Schools allowed parents to choose whether they wanted their students to return to the classroom in person or continue learning from home. Students were put into two learning groups, regardless of where they were learning, and the schedule was changed to only four classes per day, twice a week in-person to limit interaction with other students and potential exposure to Covid-19. “Having students back in our buildings for the first time this school year was an incredible milestone worth celebrating,” Superintendent Jared Cordon said. “The opportunity to be around kids, this is what feeds us." Cordon said distance learning was hard on the teachers and students who didn’t have the same opportunities to build relationships as in previous years. Since the school opened, Cordon said other 6A schools in the state have asked how Roseburg did it. “Our high school is one of very few, if not the only, campus our size that is open in Oregon right now, and we attribute that to the hard work of our staff in establishing and implementing appropriate safety protocols and to our community for keeping case rates down in our county,” Cordon said. One of the advisory metrics from the Oregon Department of Education and the Oregon Health Authority guidelines, called Ready Schools, Safe Learners, is having less than 200 cases per 100,000 people over 14 days. According to the Douglas Public Health Network, there were 172 new positive cases (180 presumptive) in the county between Jan. 18 and Feb. 1. Approximately 20 percent of middle school students and 25 percent of high school students will continue learning remotely through at least the quarter when they will be given the chance to choose in-person or remote learning again. The Oregon Department of Education and the Oregon Health Authority manage the school reopening guidelines and share them in a document called Ready Schools, Safe Learners. Cordon said he and the district staff chose to follow the stricter optional advisory recommendations instead of the required mandates “just in case.” The document was on version 5.5.0 as of Feb. 10 and was originally published online in March. The guidelines require that students be in a single group or multiple groups that cause them to interact with no more than 100 people in an educational week, with exceptions for outdoor learning to allow for contract tracing if needed. “We continue to focus on the health and safety of our students, staff and families,” Cordon said. “Along with this priority, we are working to connect and engage with students who have not participated regularly in remote learning. This year has been incredibly challenging for students and families, and it is imperative that we work to ensure students are receiving the social-emotional and mental health support they need while helping them stay on track with their education.” Now that the schools are open, they follow different metrics for remaining open than the county. As long as there is no evidence of Covid-19 spreading within the schools, they may remain open.