Utica City School District will start the year remote

Utica City School District will start the year remote

The school board voted on a revised reopening plan.

News channel 2's caitlin irla joins us live here in the studio to tell us about the new plans.

Caitlin, good evening.

Jason, in a five to one vote, the utica school board voted to switch to an all remote learning plan to start the school year.

One reason for the change -- the uncertainty of the pandemic.

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None .

None joseph - "this is a cautious approach because no one knows how it's going to work out."

The revised plan includes remote instruction only for students for the four weeks and a hybrid model for teachers.

This change comes after the utica teachers association asked for the plans to be revised.

"i think they're uncomfortable because one the one side, there's just not enough clear information in terms of the health risks."

The revised plan is a more gradual approach to bringing students and teachers back into the classroom.

Donald - "we need to make sure they're protected as best we can, i think if we take our time and go a little slower, and see what happens," robert - "this is for number one, safety of our students, also safety of our teachers, faculty, administrators, everybody in the district."

Teachers will teach from the buildings three days a week and from home two days.

However, if they choose too, they can teach from their classrooms five days a week..

Danielle - "teachers need more time, virtual learning can give us time so if we do close again or another issue arises, it's a smooth transition back to the homes, back to the classrooms, whatever it may be."

One board member did vote no to revising the reopening plans.

Louis - "its difficult for me to waiver of the support of in person teaching, i think it's extremely important."

> after the first four weeks of virtual learning, the board will evaluate the (date-ah) data to see if they are ready to phase students back into the buildings.

The first day of school is september 8th.

The next board meeting will be september 22nd.

Jason back to you.

Another school making a big decision today was new hartford.