Schools will keep some COVID changes

By Terry Murry on Friday, February 26th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

PENDLETON – Most InterMountain Education Service District schools are now seeing students as schools in larger districts are employing an AM/PM Hybrid schedule of 50 percent classroom and 50 percent online learning. Superintendent Mark Mulvihill said the vast majority of parents, but not all of them, are opting to send their students to school.

“There are some parents who like the distance learning and still don’t feel like it’s safe to return,” he said. “They have that option if they want to maintain that.”

Mulvihill quickly corrected himself after saying that the goal is to get as close to normal as soon as possible.

“We won’t ever return to what we did before,” he said. “I don’t know what it will look like. It should be better. It’s made us re-evaluate what you do during snow days. Do you need to close school or do you just go into distance learning?”

Mulvihill added that student athletes taking long trips to competitions could utilize distance learning in some format as well. In addition, he said driving to Salem for lengthy meetings could go by the wayside.

“We will be different than we were before, and I believe for the better,” he said. “I think we’ll have more options. I think we’ve learned a lot. This pandemic has forced change.”