ALAMOSA — Monday night the Alamosa Board of Education met to discuss the plan for the return to school amid coronavirus. At Monday’s meeting, the Board moved to fill vacancies with Michael Mumper appointed to Board President. The vacancy at Vice President left by Mumper was filled by April Gonzales The Board presented three possible options for the return to school.

All three plans started with staff workdays from August 3-18th and continued with staff development on the 19th through the 21st. That’s where the paths diverged.

Plan 1 allowed for more ‘Back-to-school’ interviews spanning from the 24th-27th. While plans 2 and 3 interviews were allocated only for the 24th and 25th. From there plan 2 and 3 hit the ground running.

Plan 2 offers a jumpstart for K-12 on August 26-28 for students to learn procedures and acclimate themselves to the new normal of inperson learning and is the first to cross starting line with in-person instruction beginning on August 31st.

Option 3 plans for the jump starts on the 26th and 27th as well as the 30th and the 31st. It also offers a staggered start from September 1st to the 3rd with the first day of in-person learning slated for September 8th.

The most popular option, night-of, was option 1 – garnering a near-unanimous approval rating from teachers and staff in the comment section of the Zoom meeting. Option 1 offered an optional K-6- 9 orientation on August 28th, then a K-12 jumpstart from August 31st to September 3rd.

Testing is scheduled on the 4th and option 1 plans for the first day of In-Person instruction to be on September 8th. As they were still options there was plenty of discussion as well as an inclination to gather more information before deciding.

Things are looking up for the San Luis Valley and Colorado. Positive cases continue to fall locally as the daily update from SLV Emergency from Monday reported that the San Luis Valley is host to only 8 known active cases. Colorado currently has the 16th best ‘Cases per 100,000’ ranking in the nation according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Suggesting steps taken by healthcare professionals and state officials are paying big dividends. As the journey back is a marathon, not a sprint positive signs should be met with a renewed adherence to what is working. Which doesn’t seem to be lost on many.

In Alamosa schools, 226 students have registered for online as opposed to in-person learning representing 45 percent of the student body across all grades. Local Nurse Practitioner Tiffanie Hoover spoke during public comment urging consideration for masks for grades 3-5. Which the Board discussed further later in the meeting.

Monday also saw the second reading of the new year’s policies prioritizing Policies Related to Reopening Schools, Policies Reflecting Title IX Changes and Policies Reflecting State Legislative Changes.