BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — In a special session Saturday morning, the Bowling Green City School board decided to return to the plan to have students in classrooms full time, starting March 29.
Saturday's vote changed a vote made on Tuesday that had rescinded the decision to go back to in-person classes.
District families now have three learning options to choose from for the return.
"Either full face-to-face starting on [March] 29, continuing with the NOVA and then now this third virtual option through Google Meet," said BG Schools Superintendent, Francis Scruci.
'NOVA' refers to the Bobcat Online Academy, another virtual option, which assigns students lessons to be done on their own time.
The third option Scruci referred to is to have students remain virtual but to live stream their classes in real-time.
He says the live streaming option is only available to students from 6-12 grade and it's not the first time the district has introduced it.
"The three previous times, we saw the limitations that it would do," said Scruci. "We didn't think it was a great option, but given the timing right now and the current climate, we're going to make it work".
Like any return, he says there will likely be some challenges with bringing back more students on a consistent basis.
Mainly dealing with the size of their buildings and airflow.
"In our hallways there's nothing that we can do to alleviate kids coming in contact with each other. We have older buildings, narrow hallways, and smaller class sizes than the modern facilities that exist in most districts," said Scruci.
Despite this limitation, he believes they will work through it.
Families that wish to keep their children learning remotely due to coronavirus concerns can have online access to classes but must register by March 24.