The South Butler County School District has changed its reopening plan with fewer than two weeks to go until the first day of school.

The school board on Wednesday voted 6-3 to change from a five-day return to school for all students to a partial hybrid plan when school begins Aug. 31.

In the new plan, all elementary school students can return to school five days per week, while students in the middle school and high school will follow the hybrid plan initially approved for all students.

Secondary students will be divided into two groups.

One group will attend Monday and Tuesday, the schools will be sanitized Wednesday without students present, and the second group of students will attend school Thursday and Friday.

Superintendent David Foley said social distancing would not be possible in the secondary schools if all students were to return full time, as students get up and move around the school every time classes change.

He said elementary students will return full time for several reasons.

Younger children not being as susceptible to COVID-19, a more structured school day, less movement within the school in elementary grades, and the ability of teachers to better control the movements of younger students are among those reasons, Foley said.

The board bowed to parent pressure in July, when a survey showed 85 percent of parents wanted students to return to class full time.

Families with two working parents worried about how they would educate their children at home under the initial plan, which divided all students into two groups and saw them attending two days per week.

The parents who spoke during the online board meeting's public comment session had mixed stances. Some cited advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics for schools to reopen to students, or cited Butler County's low positivity rate of COVID-19.

Others worried that many parents work in Allegheny County and could bring the virus to their families, who in turn could bring it to school.

School board members were given the opportunity to offer their stance on reopening school prior to the vote on the new plan.

All of the board members, regardless of their ideas on the new plan, praised Foley for the many hours of work he has undertaken in trying to do the right thing for the school district and community.

Board member George Zacherl said the cases of COVID-19 in the ZIP codes within the school district are not on an upswing.

He said secondary students will work part-time jobs, interact with friends and participate in sports, so are not quarantining anyway.

“I am in favor of keeping the kids in school five days a week,” Zacherl said.

While he called the new plan well-thought-out, board member Matt Cimbala said he worries about students in sixth and seventh grades learning online at home while their parents work.

Cimbala fears secondary students will congregate at one house to learn together, which would negate the reasoning for the new plan.

He also said Gov. Tom Wolf “has gone rogue” in his mandates during the pandemic and is “acting as a dictator.”

Because of Wolf's actions, Cimbala said he cannot vote for a hybrid reopening plan as a duly elected school board member.

“He just doesn't have the right and I just want to resist this,” Cimbala said.

Board member Rebecca Boyd chastised Cimbala for politicizing the district's reopening plan.

She said no matter how the board voted, there would be parents who do not agree. She said compromise is needed among parents in the district.

“You're never going to get your way all of the time,” Boyd said.

Board member Debra Miller said she would vote according to the same views she had when she was elected 17 years ago, which are to consider the safety, academics and education of the students.

She said the board received so much pushback from parents when the initial hybrid reopening plan was approved that it was placed above the health and safety of students and staff.

Board president Donna Eakin said she would vote according to the recommendation of Foley, who has spent countless hours speaking to hospital officials, superintendents from other counties and states and others to come to a decision on reopening in the face of the pandemic.

“It's a lot of information to try to absorb,” Eakin said.

She said the safety of students, faculty and staff is of the utmost importance, and she considers Foley's recommendation the one that would keep all involved the safest.

Foley said elementary students will still have the option to learn remotely.

He said about 350 students in the district have chosen remote learning at home. Of those, 127 are elementary students.

The board members who voted against the new plan were Zacherl, Cimbala and Dale Fennell.

Foley said the board would discuss the first two weeks of school under the new plan at its Sept. 9 meeting.