93-3-WMR Audio on Demand presents the Preston and Steve show podcast.

And now Preston and Steve's news updates with Kathy Romano.

Today is Wednesday, October 14th.

Good morning, Kathy.

Good morning in the news this morning.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the school district of Philadelphia will begin returning children to classrooms on November 30th with children in grades pre-K through second.

Superintendent William Hight Jr. made the announcement in a letter sent to staff on Tuesday.

The district plans a phased in approach that prioritizes the health and safety of our students and staff,

as well as the needs of our families while offering a mix of in-person and digital remote learning for students, he said.

Families can choose an all-virtual option if they desire.

In the first phase of the plan, the district's youngest learners will go back to their physical classrooms two days a week

learning remotely the other days.

Students will be in the classroom either Monday and Tuesday or Thursday and Friday.

All children will be remote on Wednesdays.

The district's goal as much as possible, Hight said in the letter, is for students to continue with their current teachers,

whether they choose hybrid or 100% digital learning.

The district spent $6 million in technology to allow teachers

to live stream their classrooms teaching both in-class students and those learning virtually

at the same time. There was no immediate plan for when other students might come back to the

classrooms and officials said the details were subject to change given COVID-19 case counts

and other factors. Haidt is expected to announce further details to the plan later today. What was the start date on that, Kath? November 30th. Oh, wow. Okay. So Ben's school district starts back next week. So some of the kids will be home on Mondays and Wednesdays. Some of the kids will be home on Tuesdays and Thursdays and all the kids will be home on Fridays. But they're going to do some virtual and some in class starting next week. It's wild how many different variations on these. There's tons of them. So my friend was telling me that his kids, it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, one week and then Tuesday and Thursday the next week. And it depends on their ages, too.

So it depends in middle school and some, I think the high school doesn't start until the following week. It's even weirder because my neighbor's kids are full-grown adults with their own family. Oh, that's weird. They're being forced to go to school. Forced or choosing? Yeah, forced to choose. Okay. So yeah, so this is November 30s.

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