ANDERSON COUNTY, Tenn. — Anderson Co. School district is preparing to welcome students back to class this fall.
But of course, this school year will look completely different.
Anderson Co. leaders released reopening plans for elementary, middle and high schools.
In the district's reopening Plan A, students are set to return to the classroom.
There will be daily grab and go breakfast will be available for students and lunch schedules will be adjusted for social distancing.
"At lunch time you know there's a sit down environment. At this time, there are no plans in Plan A to have students eat in their classrooms, said Anderson Co. Schools spokesperson Ryan Sutton. "We're going to have staggered lunches and spread those out as much as possible."
Students desks will be spaced out inside each classroom, facing the same direction.
"If you think of a traditional classroom setting, you'll have a group of four five or six desks that are in a circle. That's really bad for the transmission of disease," Sutton said.
Additionally in Plan A, Anderson Co. schools is requiring bus riders to wear masks.
"Social distancing on a bus is almost impossible. We bus anywhere between 2300-2400 students per day," Sutton said. "It would be impossible to try to get all those kids to school that way. So the masks was the best thing we could come up with."
Even though its recommended, students and some staff members are not required to wear masks in the building.
"We are not going to require any student to wear a mask, but we will require that some staff members that can't maintain that social distancing during the job to wear a mask. Those are things like one-on-one reading groups or speech therapy," Sutton said.
When students arrive at school, they'll have their temperature checked with touchless thermometers.
If a student's temperature is over 100.4, he or she will be quarantined until a parent can pick them up.
"There is going to be a designated quarantine area in the school for someone who does show signs and symptoms of this virus," said Sutton. "It's going to look a lot different depending on what school the room is in, but what we can say is that the child will always be under supervision."
In the district's Plan B, a mix of in-class and virtual learning will take place and Plan C will have only virtual learning.
According to state law, each student is required to participate in 6.5 hours of instruction per day, this includes a 30 minute lunch period.
"One of the things that we have as a qualification for that is that you must meet with your principal or administrator to see how that plan is going to go into action," Sutton said. "There are things such as internet connectivity, cell phone signal, that could be a barrier in that. We want to make sure that we can address those needs in different ways. "