At a meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 12, the Clarkdale-Jerome School District Governing Board voted 4-1 to continue with distance-learning through Jan. 22, returning to a modified version of in-person learning on Monday, Jan. 25.
Governing Board member Angelina “Angie” Smith was the lone dissenting vote.
“Beginning Monday, Jan. 25, the district will move into a new hybrid model, where students will attend class in-person for two days and will be home for three days out of the week,” CJSD Superintendent Danny Brown wrote in an email. “We will remain in our hybrid learning model through Friday, Feb. 12.”
Brown said that the decision was made partially based on expectations that the district’s teachers and staff would soon begin receiving the Moderna vaccine for COVID-19 on Jan. 19, allowing them to return to in-person learning the following week, with time to build up some immunity.
“I support going into the hybrid model,” Smith wrote in an email explaining he vote. “As a precaution I was hoping to wait until the entire staff received the vaccine and had at least 12 days to let it get into their systems before moving forward. I know that everyone will continue to follow the safety measures to keep CJSD a safe place for the Students and Staff.”
According to Brown, this decision is being treated as final unless something happens to disrupt the vaccination schedule, regardless of changes in COVID-19 spread in the community.
“The board is not going to meet until the regularly schedule,” Brown said. “One of the things the board wanted to make sure is that we don’t keep making these decisions every week.”
At a planned meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 9, the board intends to discuss whether the district will be continuing with its hybrid model of alternating which days students come in, or returning to the more straightforward model of in-person learning that the district used in the fall.
