Fairfield Students May Get More Classroom Time In January

FAIRFIELD, CT — Fairfield elementary students are expected to be back in the classroom for the majority of the school day by late January, according to the school district’s latest learning plan.

The plan will be presented Tuesday to the Board of Education. An overview of the plan posted on the district website includes projected dates for scheduling changes, which are intended to increase students’ contact with teachers while giving the district more flexibility to move between learning models in response to the fluctuations of the coronavirus pandemic.

The adjustments detailed in the overview present some new challenges for the district.

“Increasing in-person learning for all students risks inadvertently increasing remote learning for some (more will need to quarantine should a positive case occur),” the overview said.

As of Friday, 39 students and staff members had the virus across the district, while 257 district community members were in quarantine.

Currently, elementary schoolers are divided into two cohorts and spend half the day at school and half the day learning remotely. A plan to bring elementary students back to the classroom full-time in November was called off in October when Fairfield's coronavirus case rate spiked. Cohorts of middle and high school students are in the classroom two days a week, and learn from home the other three days, with all secondary students learning remotely Wednesdays.

Under the new plan, middle and high schoolers would still rotate between in-person and remote learning, but students would also see increased classroom instruction starting Jan. 4, with each cohort receiving in-person learning with early dismissal every other Wednesday. As of Jan. 19, elementary students would be in school daily from 8:55 a.m. to 1 p.m., then move to live remote learning from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Additionally, the number of cohorts for secondary students would increase from two to four to allow for more flexibility, and elementary schoolers would have five cohorts instead of two.

An earlier version of the plan proposed a shorter school day and no lunch for middle and high school students. Under the current plan, elementary schoolers are the only students who wouldn’t receive in-school lunch. Instead, the district’s youngest learners will have a 15-minute snack break and the option for a grab-and-go meal.

The previous version of the plan, linked in a recent story by the Connecticut Post, was a source of community concern after it was shared with district staff and then leaked to a larger audience. The plan was set to be presented to the board at a special meeting last week, but the meeting was canceled the day it was scheduled to take place and the presentation was moved to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.