Fair Lawn Board Of Education To Talk Reopening Plan: What To Know

FAIR LAWN, NJ — The Board of Education will meet Thursday to discuss the Fair Lawn Public Schools reopening plan.

Scheduled for 7 p.m., the meeting will likely provide district administrators the chance to expand on a tentative reopening plan update from July 18.

In that communication, it was revealed that the district is making plans for students in kindergarten through sixth grade to attend in-person classes five days a week.

Superintendent Nicholas Norcia wrote in this update that due to a reconfiguration of the middle school model in Fair Lawn, elementary schools have additional space that the district plans to use, which will hopefully ensure safety during in-person learning.

"It is our intention to utilize this additional space, plus areas such as art rooms and media centers if necessary to safely space our students out with 6 feet between each student," he wrote.

The final plan, he added, will attempt to minimize student movement throughout the day, and touch on aspects including staffing assignments and changes to the lunch schedule.

Students above sixth grade will likely follow a hybrid learning schedule, according to the tentative plan.

According to the update, the students will follow a half-day schedule and will be placed into two cohorts. One group will attend class in the mornings, the other in the afternoon.

The cohorts will likely be arranged alphabetically, to help ensure that siblings are placed into the same cohort. Other than that, however, nothing is set in stone.

"Both cohorts will meet every day, five days a week; the number of weeks these cohort groups will meet in either the morning or afternoon block will be determined later and may be switched every month," said Norcia.

Students in "self-contained" special education classes will attend school five days a week, according to the update.

Norcia said other topics will be addressed at a later date, which is likely to be at the Thursday Board of Education meeting. These topics include personal protective equipment, transportation, instruction and curriculum and before and after school care.

He also added that, as a parent of a student just entering the system, he can relate to the stresses of what others are going through.

"As a parent of a child entering Kindergarten, this is the last way I ever envisioned my daughter beginning such a pivotal time in her life and my hope is that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel and ‘normalcy’ will return for all of us," he wrote. "We also know that depending on data, we may have to dial back again and we will be ready, should we need to have that conversation."

The Board of Education meeting can be viewed online through the district website.