PERRYSBURG, Ohio — Students at Perrysburg Schools will not return to in-person learning immediately after winter break.
The district will be using a staggered method to help keep everyone safe from possible COVID-19 case increases after the holidays.
This comes after Wood County and the school district saw a surge of cases following Thanksgiving.
"We're anticipating and we're hoping that we're wrong. But, we're anticipating that there is going to be an increase in cases following Christmas and New Year's holidays," Perrysburg Superintendent Tom Hosler said.
As a precaution, all students will spend their first week back on a remote learning model.
Starting the week of Jan. 12, the district will bring back certain groups of students.
"Pre-K through sixth-grade students will be back in a hybrid, a face-to-face mode that next week," he said.
The biggest change in learning is for students at Hull Prairie Intermediate, Hosler says. They will return to in-person learning two days a week and then remote the other three.
Hull Prairie has been one of the buildings with an increased spread of COVID-19 spread, forcing them to move to remote learning.
"We need to see evidence that things are settling down in our community. Once we see that, we want those students back four days a week, the teachers want those students back four days a week," Hosler said.
Students in grades seven through 12 will remain remote until the third week back from winter break.
The superintendent says they are also working on ways to get students with special needs into classrooms after the break and will be communicating with families soon.