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Though students have begun heading back to school for in-class and online learning, state officials say they are still reviewing reopening plans in about 25% of New Jersey’s school districts.
The state Department of Education has received plans from 804 school districts, including public schools, charter schools and private schools for students with disabilities, officials said. The plans are required to detail how schools are planning to reopen with social distancing, health screenings and other measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
As of Thursday, 607 plans were approved. Another 180 were returned to be revised or have questions answered and 17 had not yet been reviewed, state officials said.
“I know (state Education) Commissioner Kevin Dehmer and his team are pushing to get every plan approved on time, and I have every confidence that our school year will get off to a safe start,” Gov. Phil Murphy said Friday at his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton.
The delay in approving plans is not expected to force school districts to reschedule their first day of classes, Murphy said.
State officials did not release the names of the 197 districts that either do not have approved plans because they were being revised or hadn’t been looked at yet. Murphy said he did not think it was fair to name the school districts while they were being asked to rewrite parts of their plans.
State Department of Education officials have previously said they are prioritizing approving reopening plans with students returning for in-person classes.
Murphy had previously said he wants the reopening plans to be approved by the state before a district brings kids and teachers back to school. But he said the state is working closely with the districts that had their plans sent back for revisions.
“The department has kept an open, active line of communication with those districts to ensure that these plans end up where they need to be,” Murphy said.
Of the 607 plans that have been approved, 354 are reopening with hybrid in-person and remote learning, 59 with all in-person learning and 172 are all-remote with all children learning at home. The remaining 22 districts have a combination of hybrid, remote and in-person plans varying by school.
State officials did not say how many of the remaining 197 unapproved plans plan to reopen hybrid, all-remote or in-person.
Murphy announced in June that he wanted all New Jersey public schools to reopen with some in-person classes. The state Department of Education released more than 100 pages of guidelines on how schools should screen students and staff for COVID-19 symptoms, keep desks six feet apart and institute other safety measures.
School districts were required to submit detailed school reopening plans to the state a month before reopening. But Murphy announced in August that districts would have the option of opening with all-remote learning if they felt they were unable to reopen safely. That prompted many districts to revise their reopening plans with only a few weeks left until the school year was set to begin.
Under the system, school districts submit their plans to county and state education officials for review. But the plans can be sent back if the reviewers have questions or ask for changes.
The process has been slow for many districts. In Paterson, one of the state’s largest school districts, the reopening plan was approved by county officials Tuesday and sent to the state — less than a week before schools were set to reopen remotely.
“We met all of the requirements on the checklist,” said Paul Brubaker, a spokesman for the Paterson School District.
Under its plan, Paterson is scheduled to begin the school year remotely on Tuesday and bring students back for in-person classes in November, at the earliest, Brubaker said.
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Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com.
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