Montgomery County Public Schools will return to half-day, in-person instruction four days each week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday) for all in-person students beginning Monday, Sept. 28.
Remote and virtual students will keep their current schedule.
The move back to Phase III, Level 2 instruction returns all students to the instructional status they had on Friday, Sept. 11.
Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 22, a scheduled meeting was held between MCPS administration and members of the New River Public Health Task Force. In attendance at the meeting were Anthony Wilson, Blacksburg’s police chief; Dr. Noelle Bissell, Director of the New River Health District;, Dr. Mark Miear, MCPS superintendent; Gunin Kiran, chair of the school board; Marti Graham, school board vice-chair; Annie Whitaker, deputy superintendent, Tommy Kranz, assistant superintendent), Jason Garretson, Director of Student Services and Safety; and Brenda Drake, Director of Communication and Community Relations.
The group reviewed local health data that showed a decrease in positive test cases in Montgomery County and a decrease in the 7-day average for positive cases (71 last week, now 36).
Chief Wilson and Dr. Bissell stated that there are no performance indicators that should keep MCPS from reopening.
Dr. Miear recommended to the school board that MCPS resume Phase III, Level 2 operation.
Five of the seven school board members agreed with moving back to Phase III, Level 2 operation on Monday, Sept. 28 (Bond, Franklin, Graham, Kiran, Partin). One board member stated a desire to stay in the current instructional phase (Cherbaka). One board member was unavailable (Kass).
With the majority of the school board willing to move forward, the decision was made to move the public school system back to half-day in-person instruction (Phase III, Level 2 instructional status).