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NANTICOKE — In a short but substantial meeting, Greater Nanticoke Area School Board reaffirmed plans to bring elementary students back to school five days a week this month, accepted one board member’s resignation and appointed a replacement, recalled all the workers furloughed during the pandemic and approved the 2021-22 calendar with the first day of classes set for Sept. 7.

Before the meeting officially began Board President Tony Prushinki called for a vote to accept the resignation of member Erika Jacobs from the board, then for another vote appointing former Board member David Hornlein as replacement. Hornlein was sworn in and took a seat on the High School stage where the meeting was held with an in-person audience seated in the auditorium, social distancing enforced by rows of seats taped off.

Superintendent Ron Grevera then announced the district still expects to move forward with plans to bring more students to in-person classes. The Kennedy Early Childhood Center will go to five days a week March 15 while the High School and Education Center re-open in hybrid mode. The Elementary Center will return to five days per week March 22.

The agenda included nearly a page and a half with names of workers furloughed due to the pandemic and the resultant switch to remote only learning. The board voted unanimously to recall all who had been laid off.

The board also approved two initiatives intended to help students make up for ground lost during the pandemic: Establish a summer program for special education students to recover lost learning, and establish a high school credit recovery program for the summer at no cost to the students. Both will be paid for with federal COVID-19 relief grant money.

The new calendar begins school on Sept. 7 with the last day set for June 9. Grevera said there are snow days built in, but that the district also has five “Flexible Instruction Days” known as “cyber snow days” for the year under a new law signed by Gov. Tom Wolf last summer that allows up to five such days per school year. Students complete assignments and lessons on line. The intent is to maintain instructional continuity and reduce the number of snow make-up days often tacked on at the end of the school year.

In a related matter, the board accepted a quote from GDC for a three-year lease of 300 computers at a cost of $224,220.

And the board approved the establishment of a life skills classroom for kindergarten through fourth grade for the 2021-22 school year.

Greater Nanticoke Area plans return to school, recalls furloughed workers