North Hills Students To Return To School Part-Time

ROSS TOWNSHIP, PA— The North Hills School Dtstrict will move to a hybrid operational mode on Oct. 5 after school directors on Thursday approved superintendent Patrick Mannarino's recommendation to do so.

Under the hybrid plan, students will attend school two days in-person and three days virtually.
Students with last names A-L will attend in-person on Monday and Tuesday and virtually Wednesday through Friday. Students with last names M-Z will attend school virtually Monday through Wednesday and in-person on Thursday and Friday.

"I’ll admit, the incredible job we’re doing [in the full virtual model] is making the decision to change the operational model to hybrid a difficult one but we all agree that the best place for children to receive their education is in-person and face-to-face," Mannarino said at the start of Thursday’s meeting, according to a district release.

Mannarino’s recommendation was based on, among other things, the community transmission rate as defined by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

The metric weighs two factors from the most recent seven day period, the incidence rate per 100,000 residents and percent positivity rate. The two statistics together lead to a county’s
transmission rate, which can be low, moderate or substantial. Allegheny County has been moderate since the end of July and when in the moderate range, hybrid instruction is acceptable.

Traditional building start and end times will return under the hybrid plan and that schedule will remain for the rest of the school year regardless of the instructional model, whether the student is remote or in-person or if there is an unplanned school closure related to COVID, the weather or another factor.

In hybrid, lessons will be streamed live from teachers’ classrooms so both in-person and remote students can watch, however, interactions with the teacher and remote students will be limited during the live instruction.

The online attendance form must be submitted for each school day a student is attending virtually. Teachers will take attendance of students on in-person days.

October 1 and 2 will be asynchronous and independent school days to allow teachers time to prepare their classrooms for the hybrid. There will be no live lessons.

There will be no district morning or after school care during the hybrid. Information regarding YMCA after care is forthcoming.

All student meals are free through Dec. 31 via the cafeteria on in-person days or curbside pick up on virtual days. Complete information is available at nhsd.net/menus.aspx.

The district has launched a new COVID-19 tracker to keep track of both active cases in the district by building and cases that have been cleared by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.