EPISD Reveals Plan to Reopen Schools for Fall

Does it feel like school just let out for the summer? It does, doesn't it? Well, we only have a few more weeks of summer break for our kids before they're back in the classrooms.

EPISD recently held a couple of virtual meetings to unveil their plan for the return of school this fall. Or actually, it should be return of school this late summer. This new school year is going to begin on August 2nd with some key changes happening, including:

• Virtual learning will not be an option - students must attend classes five days a week.
• Extracurricular activities will resume, including athletics, fine arts and UIL.
• Recess and physical education will also resume and cafeterias will reopen.
• Grade retention will be eliminated.
• Masks, social distancing, and temperature checks will no longer be required.
• The 10-day quarantine is no longer required for those with high-risk exposure who are fully vaccinated.
• EPISD will continue to sanitize each of its schools daily and contact tracing will continue.

Something else that the district is going to work with is helping students that are behind because of the pandemic. Let's be honest here, as much as virtual learning helped us through the pandemic, it wasn't anywhere near face-to-face learning. EPISD Associate Superintendent Carla Gonzalez talked about students that either skipped the STAAR test or failed it.

Students who did not take or did not pass the STAAR test in 2021, meaning the spring, they will be required to do the following: They will have no less than 30 tutoring hours total during the summer, beginning really now in August, all the way through Summer 2022. What we will be going for is, we're trying for more than an hour per week, simply because 30 hours per subject, even though some of our students will be focusing on math and reading, some of them also had tests in social studies and science. So for some students that could be 120 supplemental hours.

If you're a parent that has any questions about the reopening or anything regarding EPISD, you can CLICK HERE for more info.