Dearborn Schools To Discuss Return To Classroom Saturday

DEARBORN, MI — Dearborn Schools trustees will reevaluate the district's reopening plan during its Saturday retreat.

District officials said recently that they will discuss and possibly vote on a revised plan outlining the steps needed to bring students back to some form of face-to-face learning.

“We know face-to-face learning is the best model for most students, and we want to return our students to the classrooms,” Dearborn Public Schools Superintendent Glenn Maleyko said. “However, Dearborn continues to have some of the highest COVID rates in the county. We have to balance the need to get students back in schools with protecting the health and safety of our students and staff.”

The retreat begins at 10 a.m. Saturday and will be streamed live on the district's YouTube and cable channels as well as on its Facebook page. Trustees aren't scheduled to discuss reopening plans until around 1:15 p.m.

Dearborn school board trustees had already planned their annual retreat for Saturday when Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that she was encouraging schools to offer some form of in-person instruction by March 1. She left the decision on whether to return to in-person instruction to individual school districts.

Maleyko on Jan. 11 suggested the board hold a special meeting to talk revisit the district's reopening plans, adding that the Feb. 8 meeting may be too late for the district to completely develop and implement a new plan before March 1.

Dearborn Public Schools has been in remote learning since Whitmer closed schools to in-person instruction in March 2020. The district currently doesn't have a date set for returning to in-person instruction.

In October, the district adopted its current reopening plan, which allows the district to reopen once the Dearborn area has improved to a D rating on the COVID risk matrix developed by the Wayne County Health Department. In the health department's most recent rating, Dearborn and several other communities received Es.

The district also wanted to hold off on reopening until Wayne County had a positivity rate below 5 percent for at least two weeks in a row. The current COVID report issued by the county shows a positivity rate of 10.8 percent.