Clovis Unified plans to bring students who want in-person instruction back to campus by January

CLOVIS, Calif. (KFSN) -- One of the Valley's largest school districts is preparing to bring students back to campus.

Clovis Unified has already started pilot programs of a hybrid learning model and will expand those next month but the plan to return to in-person instruction will be decided by each school based on parent and staff survey responses.

Given that there are almost 43,000 students within Clovis Unified, district officials are saying they are fully aware there is no 'one size fits all' plan and they are responding accordingly.

Each individual school site will devise its own plan to come back based on the responses they received from parents regarding whether they want in-person instruction or virtual learning.

Students will be wearing masks, sitting with plenty of social distance, while others learn from a distance virtually.

"Every school will have a different path over the next couple of weeks and into the next semester and they really need to listen to and hear from their school," says Clovis Unified chief communications officer Kelly Avants.

Avants says the district will continue their phased-in approach to bringing elementary students back into physical classrooms - the goal is to have everyone who wants to return, back on campus by January.

Parents with children at their 34 elementary schools received surveys asking the direction they want to take for the rest of the school year.

Each campus will shape its plans based on those responses.

"We've been sifting through, down to the individual classroom level. If a teacher is wanting to come back to an in-person model, how many of the students in that teacher's class also want that, what's the timing related to that etc.," says Avants.

Elementary schools will work to accommodate families who want their students back on campus earlier than January. Small pilot programs are already underway at some sites and will expand in November. All remaining elementary students opting for in-person instruction would return January 19th.

For families who want to continue virtual learning, there will be fully online options.

When students come back, it will be in a hybrid model where students would go to campus either in the morning or afternoon, spending the other half of their day at home learning virtually.

As for the possibility of Fresno County moving to the more restrictive purple tier between now and then...

"Having opened under a waiver the state has said that would continue for schools that have opened under that red tier. The county and state have said they'd continue with that," says Avants.

Grades 7-through-12 would return to campus for in-person, hybrid instruction on January 5th.

All schools would utilize masks and social distancing.