South Butler County School District students in grades six through 12 will move to the hybrid model of attendance after Thanksgiving.

Secondary students will attend classes in the hybrid fashion until the second week of January, when district officials will determine whether full-time classes will resume, the hybrid model will continue or students will be moved to full-time remote learning. That decision will be based on the number of COVID-19 cases in the county and school district zip codes.

The school board at its Wednesday meeting heard Superintendent David Foley recommend that, because of the upward trend in COVID-19 cases in the county, secondary students attend school two days per week and study at home the other three days after Thanksgiving and until at least the second week of January.

A few new methods have been added to the hybrid model, in which half of the secondary students will attend school Mondays and Tuesdays and the other half Thursdays and Fridays. On Wednesdays, teachers will spend time online with students who have questions on subject matter or those who need extra help, and the school will be sanitized.

Also, Foley said teachers will livestream their classes as opposed to students using the Edgenuity program for at-home learning.

Foley said the district is prepared to livestream the 25-minute classes and all students were given Chromebooks this week to attend the livestreams.

He said he and other superintendents in Butler County and two other counties met with state Department of Education officials on Monday.

He said PDE officials gave a formula regarding COVID-19 case levels that dictates Butler County should have fewer than 187 people with COVID-19 to continue sending students to their school buildings.

Foley said the county at the time of the meeting had 299 cases. He said parents should be aware that he could get an email on Friday ordering the district to go to 100% remote learning. “We are at our tipping point,” Foley said.

School board member Rebecca Boyd agreed with the move to go to the hybrid model after Thanksgiving and even suggested the district take that action immediately as social distancing is impossible in the middle school when classes change.

Boyd asked Foley if students are wearing their masks, to which he replied that most are, but some students have been given detention for not wearing their masks.

Board member Jill McDonald agreed with Boyd's comment that detention might not be a strict enough punishment and that the district should treat mask defiance the same as the smoking policy.

Board member Matt Cimbala disagreed with remote learning, saying schools have not been proven to be super spreaders and there is no evidence that any of the COVID-19 cases in the district were contracted in the schools.

Cimbala called the state's formula “arbitrary” and said the numbers were derived in the summer.

He suggested students and families might be safer if students attend classes at school because they visit friends' homes and other locations when not in school.

Cimbala railed against Gov. Tom Wolf, saying the state has a constitution and a decision-making legislature. “We don't have a dictatorship,” Cimbala said.

The board did not take a vote on moving to the hybrid model because a resolution was previously passed that allows Foley to make such decisions during the pandemic.