Tacoma, other school districts set to start fall with full-time distance learning as COVID surges
Tacoma Public Schools and other districts across Pierce County are planning to move to full-time remote learning models this fall, affecting more than 100,000 students.
The announcements flooded in Thursday evening after the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department warned that opening schools for in-person learning this fall was unsafe at this time.
“Based on the COVID-19 disease activity in Pierce County and our region, I do not feel it is safe to open schools in September for traditional classroom learning,” Dr. Anthony Chen, the department’s director of health, said in a statement to superintendents.
The following Pierce County school districts announced the change to full-time distance learning on Thursday:
- Tacoma
- Puyallup
- Bethel
- Franklin-Pierce
- Sumner-Bonney Lake
- Orting
- Steilacoom
- University Place
- White River
- Eatonville
The full-time remote learning plans are a reversal of previous announcements that students would return to school in a hybrid model that included partial remote learning and in-person learning.
Many school districts had already prepared full-time remote learning options for families who may feel unsafe returning to school in September.
The Tacoma school board was poised to approve a hybrid model Thursday night when Superintendent Carla Santorno read the health department’s new recommendations.
“We will begin school in full remote (learning), unless the guidance changes over the next six weeks,” Santorno said.
The school board still was set to approve the hybrid model, stating it would use the plan in the event the situation improved over the coming weeks. In Tacoma’s hybrid model, K-2 students would have four in-person learning days and one remote learning day. Grades 3-12 would be split into two cohorts organized by last names, and have two in-person learning days and three remote learning days.
Transmission cases continue to rise across Washington state, prompting some King County school districts to move to full-time distance learning models earlier this week.
