The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District introduced full-time on-site learning to Pre-K through 6th grades to start the second half of the school year. As that happened, 7-12 grade students were allowed to return to full-time on-site learning officially in the Seward / Moose Pass area on Monday.
KPBSD Superintendent John O’Brien spoke to KSRM on the possibility of more 7-12 students across the Kenai Peninsula returning to on-site learning, “Speaking of COVID and numbers, we’re very pleased, even in the rest of the peninsula, numbers continue to come down. I would like to thank everyone in the community that’s been doing their part to help so that we can get our kiddos back in school full-time, five days a week. If this continues, we’ll be making an announcement on Thursday. Hopefully, we can get the rest of the Peninsula, both the South and the Central Peninsula, set for secondary students back five days a week starting February 1st. Could be another big announcement this week that we hope to make.”
O’Brien goes into detail explaining how the district makes a decision toward potentially allowing more students to return to full-time on-site learning, “All the metrics look good. Our hospitals are in good shape in terms of the number of beds and number of inpatient COVID patients. Our Borough’s positivity rate is now under 2%, which is pretty good, a far cry from 14% that we had right around Thanksgiving and the beginning of December.”
If an announcement is made this week, like O’Brien stated, Central and Southern Peninsula secondary students would be able to return to full-time on-site learning by February 1. KSRM will provide continued updates for that possible February 1 launch.