Rome City School District Opts for a 6 Week Virtual Opening

The Rome City School District is opting for a fully virtual learning plan for the first 6 weeks of school.

In a letter sent to parents, Superintendent Peter Blake listed several reasons the district decided to delay welcoming students back into their buildings, including:

• Asymptomatic cases and the lack of ability to detect positive cases in our schools.
• Quarantine and contact tracing requirements, including the burden that the Department of Health requirements will place on a family if someone is suspected of an illness or actually becomes ill.
• Testing requirements and potential cost.

Blake also referenced the increased costs for staffing classrooms, cleaning facilities, and busing students under social distancing requirements, as well as scheduling difficulties.

As a result, Rome has decided to "continue with remote learning through the first six (6) weeks of the 2020-2021 school year, at which point we will either continue this way or begin to reintroduce students back into our facilities." The district will re-evaluate in early October, and "decide how learning will look in late October/early November."

Several school districts in Central New York have announced their intentions to utilize a hybrid learning plan for the 2020-2021 school year, after Governor Cuomo gave the okay last week for schools to reopen for instruction in the fall.