Students at Three Rivers Middle and High Schools will resume full face-to-face instruction this Wednesday, Three Rivers Community Schools (TRCS) Superintendent Ron Moag said Monday. In a letter to parents, Moag said the move is the result of a change in the rate of recent, new cases of COVID-19 in St. Joseph County. The Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency (BHSJ) provides TRCS with updated pandemic statistics on at least a weekly basis, and Moag announced the move upon receiving a BHSJ report Monday.
Three Rivers Board of Education (BOE) President Erin Nowak told Watershed Voice Monday evening that the move is consistent with recent TRCS decisions. Last week, the BOE approved a motion to permit TRCS administrators to resume five-day-a-week, in-class instruction for secondary students once the average rate of positive COVID-19 tests has remained below 7.9 percent over a seven day span. The motion as passed requires TRCS to return to face-to-face instruction within two days of receiving such statistics. Last week’s average positive test rate was seven percent.
Nowak said the discussion around the BOE vote permitting the move was fairly short. Members of the BOE, administrators and staff, and the teachers’ union “were working very closely” prior to the vote “to come up with a plan that all of us were happy with,” Nowak said.
Regarding Monday’s announcement, Nowak said, “I’m very pleased. I think that there were groups that wanted everybody to come back right away, and there were groups that didn’t want them to come back until the numbers were down, and I think this was a good compromise.”
Following Monday’s announcement, BOE members issued a statement, provided by Nowak to Watershed Voice, which reads, “The Three Rivers Schools Board of Education is pleased that the data provided by the St. Joseph County Community Health Agency meets the requirements set by the Extended COVID-19 Learning Plan to allow our students to return to 100% face to face learning.” The BOE thanked “Moag, school administrators, the Return to Learn team, staff, and community members who offered their guidance and input throughout this process.”
According to Moag’s Monday letter to parents, Tuesday will be the final day for hybrid instruction. All students must report to their classrooms in person on Wednesday morning. Students will be required to wear masks while in school. The Return to Learn guidelines call for students to attend in person for the remainder of the school year.
Exceptions could occur if the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) issues a mandate requiring schools to close again, or if a “COVID positive case outbreak occurs that significantly impacts” students and staff, Moag said in his letter.
However, vaccine access is steadily expanding around the state. Newer strains of the COVID-19 virus appear to spread more easily and quickly than early variants but produce similar symptoms at similar rates. According to a separate BHSJ statement also issued Monday, initial analysis suggests that currently available vaccines appear to remain effective against newer strains, some of which recently produced positive cases in St. Joseph County for the first time.
Moag said TRCS will continue to work with BHSJ to monitor for changes in pandemic statistics.
Dave Vago is a writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.
