SAYREVILLE – Administrators in the Sayreville School District have increased the amount of days where students will receive fully remote instruction in December.
Superintendent of Schools Richard Labbe announced in a Dec. 14 notice that Dec. 21 and Dec. 22 would become fully remote days for all students. Previously, students were scheduled to receive in-person instruction on these days.
During the 2020-21 school year, because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, many Sayreville students have been receiving their education in a hybrid model that consists of in-person instruction and remote instruction. Two cohorts of students have been attending school on alternating days.
Some students have only been receiving remote instruction if their parents selected that option at the beginning of the school year.
According to Labbe, pupils in kindergarten through fifth grade are in phase 2b of the district’s plan where the cohorts receive in-person instruction on two days (Mondays and Tuesdays or Thursdays and Fridays) and remote instruction on three days.
Students at the Sayreville Middle School (SMS) and Sayreville War Memorial High School (SWMHS) – sixth to 12th grade – are in phase 2a where the cohorts participate together for in-person instruction on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Because the week of Dec. 21 will be shortened by winter break, middle and high school students were scheduled to receive in-person instruction on Dec. 21 (a Monday) and Dec. 22 (a Tuesday), while kindergarten through fifth grade pupils would have received in-person instruction on one of these days, depending on their cohort. Dec. 23 (a Wednesday) was scheduled to be fully remote and students would have the rest of the week off.
With the change in the schedule, however, Dec. 21 and Dec. 22 have become fully remote days for all students, according to Labbe. The three-day school week will be entirely virtual, with winter break still beginning on Dec. 24.
“Due to the increasing holiday surge of cases and the impact that it may have on staffing, particularly with the holiday recess fast approaching, we do not feel that we will be able to safely and effectively staff our schools for in-person instruction,” the superintendent said. “Furthermore, we hope that this will limit the amount of potential exposure that our students and staff will have prior to the holiday recess.”
Labbe stated that the hybrid model will resume when students return during the week of Jan. 4. Jan. 5 (a Tuesday) and Jan. 7 (a Thursday) are scheduled to be in-person days, while the rest will be fully virtual.