LEONARDTOWN, Md. — “We’ve worked really, really hard to get here,” St. Mary’s County Public Schools(SMCPS) Superintendent James Scott Smith reiterated to the St. Mary’s County Board of Education at their Jan. 27 meeting.
The statement followed a thorough presentation to the board, laying out coordinating plans with Maryland Governor Larry Hogan[R] and State Superintendent Karen Salmon, who are hoping to bring students back to school no later than March 1.
The phased return of students in St. Mary’s County would be as follows:
The gradual return would shift from the current virtual environment to a hybrid plan, similar to what was tried last fall. The calendar for the next few months would then become:
However, Smith made sure to note that parents will have the final call on bringing their child back in-person.
“All of it is predicated on choice… parents are going to have to make a choice as to whether or not they feel comfortable having their children participate in a hybrid learning environment,” Smith said at the meeting. “When we posed this question before, we had over 74% of parents said they wanted their kids to return to schools. I haven’t seen evidence that that’s going to necessarily change.”
Another key difference with the impending return revolves around access teachers and administrators have had to the COVID-19 vaccine. All staff will have received both necessary doses of the Pfizer vaccine upon return, which has a recorded as being roughly 94% effective.
Unfortunately, while athletics and extracurricular activities will be allowed to resume, the winter athletic season was announced as canceled. The board and individual schools will be expected to post more details surrounding athletics soon.
“Where are we now? We’re ready,” Smith said with optimism. “We talked about it in early January. We are ready to return students to school. We have done everything that we possibly can as a system to be prepared.”
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