BUTTE FALLS, Ore – According to Butte Falls School District Principal Dr Phil Long, the school district will transition from its current blended learning model to full-time in-person instruction starting April 12.

“This is great news for Butte Falls as we will be reopening,” said Dr Long. “We are ready to go back to school.”

Currently, the school district has a two-day-per-week schedule where students from schools in Butte Falls will come to class to learn. While the other two days are spent learning online. However, with the move to full-time teaching, students can expect to return four times per week. This is something the schools in Butte Falls haven’t experienced in over a year.

“I want them to come back and I want to see them every day,” said Kayla White, parent and teacher assistant at Butte Falls Elementary School. “It has been a struggle since the start of the pandemic. “

The transition to full-time in-person learning was not only made possible by the Oregon Department of Education‘s decision to change social distancing guidelines from six feet to three feet, but also thanks to the Oregon Department of Education’s decision to change social distancing guidelines from six feet to three feet. to a grant that the Butte Falls School District recently received.

The school district received a $ 5,000 grant from the AllCare Health Covid-19 Resilience Fund to help prepare its schools for the return of students to campus. According to Dr Long, the funds were used to purchase 65 individual student desks to provide workspaces for students who meet ODE standards for healthy distancing.

“We are a practical school,” said Dr Long. “Most of the students gathered around a table so we didn’t have a lot of desks and with the distance we needed it.”

While most parents are happy that face-to-face learning has returned to the Butte Falls School District, some say they wish the transition had happened sooner before removing their children from the district.

“We actually pre-registered our kids at Crater Lake Learning Academy because they allowed in-person teaching earlier,” said Rob Clark, a parent who removed his older children from the Butte School District. Falls. “It was very difficult because we are from this city and we love this community.”

According to Clark, several other families who had children in the Butte Falls school district also took their children out of the program.

While the decision to move some of his own children out of the school district was not an easy choice, Clark is hopeful that his children and other children who have been removed from the Butte Falls school district can return in the near future. .

“I hope I can bring my kids back to the school district,” Clark said. “It was just that some people thought the situation should be handled a little differently, and there is nothing more important than your child’s education.”