Manchester Middle, High Schools Back To 4 Days In Person

MANCHESTER, NJ — As Manchester Township middle and high school students shifted to four days a week of in-person instruction on Monday, there was a message from the superintendent: please keep doing what's needed to keep the coronavirus pandemic at bay.

Superintendent David Trethaway said the district aims to move to five days a week of in-person instruction, but that is dependent on the district continuing "to show positive results."

School districts across the state are under pressure to return to in-person instruction as soon as possible. On Wednesday, Gov. Phil Murphy announced that elementary schools could reduce social distancing to 3 feet between students, saying schools should resume full-day in-person instruction for the fall.

Read more: Social Distance For Many NJ School Students Changes To 3 Feet

Trethaway said the move to four days included adding classroom dividers and efforts to maintain distancing for both students and staff.

"One important thing to remember is that students who are on a four-day schedule must report to school or be marked absent," Trethaway said. "Unless there are extenuating circumstances approved by the building administrator, students cannot opt to go remote on a specific day."

Manchester, like other districts that have been using hybrid instruction, has seen middle and high school students stay home even on days they were supposed to be in the building.

Trethaway on Monday said there have been few coronavirus cases in the elementary schools but there have been 11 cases among high school students over the last two weeks.

"For the week of March 8 through March 12, there was one staff member from the Ridgeway school, one student and three staff members from the middle school, six students and one staff member from the high school, and one student from MTES who reported positive COVID tests," he said.

Last week "there were five students and one staff member from the high school, one student from the Middle School and one district staff member," Trethaway said.

Staff or students who were identified as close contacts have been quarantined, he said.

"While we continue to receive reports of positive COVID cases, we are confident that these cases are related to outside contacts," Trethaway said. "We will continue to maintain our health and safety guidelines in all of our schools and it is imperative that as parents, staff and families, we continue to follow all of the safeguards including social distancing, mask wearing, avoiding large crowds, and washing hands frequently, both inside and outside of school. Our actions outside the school setting are critical to our plans for more in-person instruction in our schools."

Trethaway said there is a waiting list for students to return to in-person instruction that is being addressed on a case-by case basis.

"We must all continue to do our part to avoid any further spread of the virus to remain safe and so we can continue and expand our in-person instruction safely to all of our students. We will continue to monitor the cases in each school to determine the status of our instruction in each school on a case-by-case basis."