Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Houghton-Portage Township schools have had signs throughout the building reminding students that masks are necessary since the start of the school year.

HOUGHTON — In a Wednesday email to school district parents, Cole Klein said that the large number of students being quarantined when a student tests positive for COVID-19 has become a challenge to the school.

Klein said the school’s face covering policy and the surface disinfecting practices have greatly reduced the transmission of COVID within the schools. However, the Health Department has advised that even with the district’s mitigation practices in place, quarantine remains essential in further reducing the spread. Among the policies in place s that students who are seated within six feet of student who has tested positive for COVID are required to quarantine for 14 days. But due to classroom size limitations, the school cannot space students in such a way that provides six feet of distance between them. The result is that an average of 20 students have been quarantined for each one who tested positive for the virus.

“You may have heard that we have been discussing how a hybrid model would improve this situation for the high school,” Klein said. “The hybrid model would divide our high school students in half, with half attending on Monday and Tuesday and the other half attending on Wednesday and Thursday. When not attending in-person instruction, students would attend virtual through live Google Meets or access recordings. By doing this, we would be able to spread our students out in the classroom to further reduce the chances of spreading COVID and eliminating the requirement to quarantine for students. This model would put every student virtual three days out of the week, which would be a challenge for many of our students and families.”

Klein said that at this time, the school is not adopting the hybrid model, strongly believing that face-to-face instruction is essential to academic success.

“At this point,” said Klein, “we feel that the benefits for the hybrid model in terms of COVID mitigation, do not outweigh the academic and emotional wellbeing of students attending face-to-face. If we begin to see significant COVID spread within our building, we would consider the hybrid model, which would give students the opportunity for some face-to-face instruction. Our hope is to be able to prevent an extended closure for our school.”

Klein said he is aware of many parent weighing the health risks and academic challenges regarding their students, and may now want to change their learning environment. The staff, he said, will do their best to accommodate their requests, whether it is to move to a full time virtual, or to return to face-to-face instruction.

“These changes need to be for, at minimum, the entire second marking period,” he cautioned.

Those parents wanting to request a change for their child, can find the online google form at: https://forms.gle/prMDzmEbfJ18x85y5

“We would like all requests to be made by Friday at noon,” said Klein, adding that the form is for students who need to make a formal change from the learning environment in which they started the school year.

On Oct. 26, Bridgemi.com reported that Coronavirus outbreaks in Michigan K-12 schools continue to rise, but at a slower rate, according to a state report released the previous Monday.

As of Nov. 2, Michigan public health officials, while not identifying or reporting coronavirus outbreaks in schools within Houghton County, the Department of Health and Human Services reported four schools in Marquette County, each with two students having tested positive, and two students at the All Saints Academy in Gogebic County. State health officials define an outbreak as two or more cases tied to a place and time; students and staff members who health officials determine contracted the virus outside of school or school activities – for example, from other family members – are not included.

While schools downstate, particularly in southeast Michigan, continue to report much higher incidents of positive test cases among both students and staff, Houghton County schools have not reported any new outbreaks.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in June that face-to-face instruction can only occur in regions that are at least in phase four of her re-opening plan. the state legislature passed a measure stating districts must reconfirm their plans on how to deliver instruction every 30 days. Districts that reopen for in-person instruction must prioritize K-5 students.