Kenai Peninsula Borough School District

Winter vacation is over for Kenai Peninsula students, who returned to their virtual classrooms Monday. But in just a week, they’ll be back in their real classrooms, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District announced this afternoon.

The district was originally planning to reopen schools Jan. 19, following guidance from an advisory committee that included teachers, staff and medical experts. 

Now that return will happen Jan. 11. The district said the shift is because of a reduction in COVID-19 transmission on the peninsula. 

Students in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District are set to return to their classrooms Jan. 19. But if COVID-19 case rates continue to trend downward, the school may open up to in-person classes a week early.

Superintendent John O’Brien at a Kenai Chamber of Commerce luncheon today said he will make an announcement by Monday about whether that will be the case.

Since schools went remote last spring, then again this fall, parents and teachers have been searching for ways to keep their students social.

One Kenai Peninsula school has found a partial answer in multiplayer online games.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor’s chief of staff is heading an effort to send all students in the school district back to in-person school full time.

James Baisden, who has three kids in the district, is asking Mayor Charlie Pierce and the borough assembly to advocate a full return to classrooms, instead of the district’s current plan. He and other parents are threatening to pull their kids out of remote school if the district does not approve a plan by Jan. 4 to send more kids back to school five days a week.