Outlook good for Laconia schools to resume regular schedule

LACONIA — The majority of the city’s public school students are poised to return to the classroom full-time just over one year after that school routine was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

With the number of COVID cases declining in the city and Belknap County, Superintendent Steve Tucker told the School Board Tuesday that the prospect is favorable that the regular school schedule will resume on March 21.

The School District has been operating on a hybrid schedule since Nov. 23 when the number of COVID cases began to increase significantly. But the board signaled on Feb. 16 that full-time, in-class instruction would resume on March 22 if the COVID numbers continue to decline. The board is scheduled to vote whether to make that change at its next scheduled meeting on March 16.

“The numbers are favorable to go back to full,” Tucker told the board.

An additional 100 students recently switched from full-time remote instruction to the hybrid schedule, he said. About 16 percent of the 2,000 students in the district are presently enrolled in the full-time remote classes, compared to 20 percent earlier this year.

In was in the middle of March of last year that schools statewide were shut down in the face of increasing number of COVID-19 cases and growing evidence of community transmission of the virus.

Laconia schools, like others around the state, began remote instruction one week later and continued it for the rest of the school year. When classes resumed in the fall most students returned under a hybrid schedule. Later the system began a phased-in return to full-time, in-class instruction which began in early November. But that was halted about two weeks later when the number of COVID cases began to surge.

Tucker said administrators are working with the district’s transportation provider to make necessary changes to the school bus schedule. Work is also underway to ensure that classrooms are arranged to conform with social distancing guidelines once a larger number of students return to the district’s six buildings.

Other details which need to be addressed before the changeover are to review the routines for arrival and dismissal, as well lunch periods, to complete the setups of all classrooms, to establish new lunch period schedules as well as make any needed changes to the seating arrangements in the cafeterias, and to prepare the communications that will be sent to all students, and their families.

Principals from the three elementary schools said the return to a full schedule will improve student learning. They said many students had fallen behind in the area of reading because of the days spent in full-remote or hybrid schedules.