St. Mary schools open for real; all students on campus

St. Mary Parish public schools were set for a true reopening Monday.
Public schools were to return to in-person learning for all students, five days a week, in response to Louisiana’s move into Phase Three of coronavirus restrictions.
That means more than 8,000 students will return to campus with all their classmates for the first time since mid-March.
The resumption of school this year has been a moving target. The school calendar originally called for an Aug. 7 opening, but at the time Louisiana was still struggling with a post-Memorial Day surge in COVID-19 cases that was most notable in young adults.
Although the numbers were still coming down, Louisiana was still reporting more than 1,200 COVID-positive people in hospitals and more than 180 on ventilators.
The School Board pushed back the opening until later in August rather than acceding to requests to delay the reopening until after Labor Day. Then, on Aug. 7, the School Board decided to delay the opening until Sept. 8 after the administration cited delays in preparing for expanded virtual learning options.
The opening was envisioned as a hybrid of limited on-campus learning mixed with online instruction for students in grades 6-12. Students in kindergarten through fifth grade attended school every day.
But after Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a proclamation moving Louisiana into Phase Three, the district decided to opt for in-person instruction five days a week.
Parents are still al-lowed to choose all-virtual learning program for their students.
“The school system is highly considerate of special circumstances facing families during this extraordinary time and seeks to maintain instructional consistency throughout the various phases instituted in response to the pandemic,” the school system said in a news release.
Daily wellness checks will be conducted for students each morning along with handwashing, social distancing and face coverings.
The Louisiana Office of Public Health reports for St. Mary generally show that new cases are down to 10 or fewer each day. Statewide, fewer than 500 new daily cases are the rule, and hospitalizations were down to 557 Sunday.
St. Mary bars were allowed to reopen last week after the weekly average of positive results on COVID-19 tests fell below the federal target of 5%.