Elizabeth Forward students to head back to classrooms

By CHRISTINE HAINES
chaines@yourmvi.com

Teachers return to Elizabeth Forward schools today, but they won’t be joined by the district’s students until Thursday.
The teachers will spend the next several days in professional development and preparing their classrooms for the new school year, which Superintendent Dr. Todd Keruskin said the district is trying to make it as normal as possible.
Keruskin said the plan is to start school 100% in person with masks optional but recommended.
Mask policy
“Masks are mandated on the buses, and optional but recommended elsewhere. We’ve done a lot of communication with our parents, so they’re comfortable with it,” Keruskin said.
Keruskin said teachers and staff members will follow that same policy of optional but recommended for masks.
“Eighty to 90% of our staff have been vaccinated. We’re just going to continue to monitor the cases,” Keruskin said.
While Allegheny County is listed by the CDC as having a high level of community transmission for COVID-19, Keruskin said local numbers have been low over the past 90 days.
“In the past three months, Elizabeth Township has had 54 cases. In Forward Township the number is 13 cases and in Elizabeth Borough there have been nine cases in the past three months,” Keruskin said. “We’re monitoring closely all the number of cases.
Enrollment
Keruskin said the student population has remained steady, with about 2,300 students enrolled.
“It’s about the same as last year. We did see some kids in outside cyber charter schools come back to Elizabeth Forward and some who went to private or parochial schools come back,” Keruskin said.
The district has operated its own cyber school for a number of years and has not seen a large exodus of students. All students in the district are issued iPads and the district was able to move from in-person education to remote education quickly last year when schools statewide were closed.
“We’re all just trying to work through this together,” Keruskin said.

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