The Butler Area School Board on Monday added a new instruction model that would keep students in grades seven to 12 in school for two or three days a week if the COVID-19 incidence rate in the district decreases to 41-80 cases per 100,000 residents.

Board members unanimously approved the new model that was recommended by Superintendent Brian White.

Those students are currently being taught through remote instruction due to a recent surge in cases. The district entered the “substantial” level of community transmission Monday because the incidence rate increased Friday to 111.84 per 100,000 residents with zip codes in the district, White said.

The state recommends school districts move to fully remote instruction if they are in the substantial level for two consecutive weeks, White said.

He predicted the state will recommend fully remote instruction if the district's transmission level remains substantial on Friday.

White noted the Pennsylvania Department of Health has said that it has the right to require districts to use remote learning, but he said he does not believe remote learning is mentioned in state law.

If the new hybrid/cohort model would go into effect, students would be divided into two cohorts, or groups.

One cohort would attend classes in person on Mondays and Thursdays and the other would attend Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The cohorts would alternate attending in-person classes on Fridays, White said.

The model would open enough classroom space to allow social distancing in nearly all classrooms, he said.

In addition, he said no evidence has shown that COVID-19 has been transmitted to anyone while in school even though 27 faculty members and other employees have been excluded from work because they have COVID or had close contract with someone who tested positive.

In other business, White said he will send surveys to parents who live in the area served by the closed Broad Street School to determine whether they would send their children there if the school reopens. The survey will be conducted after Thanksgiving.

He said school organization work done over the last two years calls for reopening the school. The school could reopen in the fall if parents support the reopening, he added.

In unrelated business, the board reappointed Director Jennifer Daniels-Wells to the Butler County Area Vocational-Technical School joint operating committee.