With the start of the 2021-22 school year fast approaching, area districts will soon be making decisions about COVID-19 safety protocol for students returning to the buildings for class.

Warren County R-III plans to address this topic during its monthly school board meeting on Aug. 12 and release information to families later that evening.

“We’ll send out district-wide communication to let everybody know what’s going on,” said Superintendent Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith.

R-III begins classes on Aug. 24.

For those wishing to make decisions about their child’s education based upon the protocol determined on Thursday, there will be a window of opportunity to do so.

“We’re going to vote on a policy Thursday to allow for changing learning formats, giving families two weeks after school starts to see what they prefer,” said Klinginsmith. “We’re going to take that same approach for people who want to go from in-person to virtual or the reverse. After two weeks this will be closed for this semester.”

Administrators have been sifting through frequently changing recommendations coming from the Centers for Disease Control, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Missouri Division of Health and Human Services.

“It’s hard to know exactly what the right decision is,” said Klinginsmith. “We are focused on keeping kids safe and having as much in-person learning as possible. This is probably something that we’ll end up reviewing each month.”

Wright City R-II Superintendent Chris Berger says decision-makers in the district were hopeful not be faced with another round of difficult decisions and were optimistic at the conclusion of the 2020-21 school year.

“The information we’re getting recently looks very much like last fall,” said Berger. “We were optimistic we could have a normal school year, and it’s extremely discouraging to staff and school board to be faced with these challenges again. But we’ll take it on and use what we learned last year.”

The R-II board will meet on Aug. 19 for its monthly meeting to determine protocol for students, who return on Aug. 23. 

Berger says a relatively quiet end to last year that saw a decrease in positive cases and quarantines has been followed by a busy past three weeks. In the last week of July alone, R-II received three different revisions to guidance from government organizations.

“Information is changing so rapidly in terms of that guidance from the CDC and DESE,” said Berger. “In terms of mitigation strategies, there will certainly be some in place. We’ll be getting data right up to the point of the meeting next week.”

R-II also has a COVID-19 task force meeting on Aug. 12, from which feedback will be considered during the board meeting the following week.

“We’re hopefully going to glean a lot of information from that meeting this week,” said Berger.

The district plans to release a COVID protocol to families on Aug. 20 and will leave the enrollment window open for virtual learning through Aug. 27.

“Though that seems like a tight turnaround time, as rapidly as the information is changing, the board felt like it was important to have the best information closest to the start of school and still be able to get that information out,” Berger said.