MACON, Ga. — The Bibb County School District wanted feedback from parents and employees on what they thought about returning back to in-person instruction.
"We decided to do a survey because we believe the best way for us to provide a service was to ask them what they're thinking and how they would like to proceed," Bibb County Schools Superintendent Curtis Jones said.
Jones is leading the transition back to in-person learning with the help of parents' and employees' feedback.
"Students, parents and staff are concerned about if someone contracts COVID-19, will they take it back from school to their home environment? So there's a concern about how will we ensure safety of staff and students in our schools," Jones said.
The district asked how people felt about re-starting school on Aug. 10, asking them to choose between 'fear', 'joy', 'anticipation', 'relief' and 'other.'
Nearly 60 percent of parents and 41 percent of employees chose "fear."
Jones says they have ideas to make sure guidelines are followed.
"If we believe it's at a very low risk, and again we'll be doing this in coordination with health officials and the CDC in that case, then we're going to be social distancing inside our schools. We will take temperature checks of all our staff and students everyday. We will practice social distancing as best we can," he said.
They're looking into limiting hallway transitions. They may decide to have some students report to school on Mondays and Tuesdays and others on Thursdays and Fridays
"We would take Wednesday to clean the schools as well as on Saturday to clean the schools to get ready for the next week, and so it depends in some ways on the level of risk of spread of COVID-19 with the precautions we will take," Jones said.
He says they're consulting with the county, health officials, the CDC and the Department of Education.
They expect to present their reopening plan to the school board to by early July.
STAY ALERT | Download our FREE app now to receive breaking news and weather alerts. You can find the app on the Apple Store and Google Play.
STAY UPDATED | Click here to subscribe to our Midday Minute newsletter and receive the latest headlines and information in your inbox every day.
Have a news tip? Email news@13wmaz.com, or visit our Facebook page.