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KINGSTON &mdash; Wyoming Valley West School district has switched plans and will open with full-remote learning through Oct. 9, Superintendent Dave Tosh announced at a virtual monthly School Board meeting Wednesday.
				The re-opening committee made the recommendation, Tosh said &ldquo;after countless meetings, extensive research, observation of re-opening of schools across the country and consideration of recent local statistics on new COVID-19 cases.&rdquo;
				The move came less than two weeks after the board, at a special morning meeting June 30, approved a hybrid plan that would have brought students back in two groups, one in class Monday and Tuesday while the rest learned at home, and the other group in class Thursday and Friday while the first group learned online at home. All students were to learn at home Wednesday while buildings underwent a deep cleaning.
				Tosh stressed local data on new infections was one reason for the change. While he didn&rsquo;t cite specific numbers, according to the state Luzerne County spent most of July with daily new infection rates in or near single digits. That changed the last week of July when the daily count started hitting double digits. It hasn&rsquo;t been below 10 since July 24, and on Wednesday at noon &mdash; just seven hours before the start of the School Board meeting &mdash; the state announced 49 new cases in Luzerne County in one day. That&rsquo;s the highest it has been since mid-May.
				Locally, in the past few days Hanover Area shut down all voluntary sports activities until Aug. 24 due to a confirmed COVID-19 case and a possible second case. Nanticoke Area previously shut down its athletic activities as a precaution when it learned three football players worked at the same place where a co-worker tested positive. And Monday night Crestwood announced a contract worker at the secondary campus tested positive.
				&ldquo;While we developed a viable hybrid plan for learning,&rdquo; Tosh said, &ldquo;recent examples of schools shutting down after only a few days open, with teachers and students becoming infected, have made us realize that opening right now poses a safety risk to our staff and students as well as their families that we are just not willing to take.
				&ldquo;There is simply too much uncertainty at the current time to bring students and staff together in our buildings and put our entire community at risk.&rdquo;
				Tosh did have some good news before he announced the change in opening plans.
				The middle school won a state Path to Graduation grant &mdash; $20,000 over the first two years and $3,000 the third year &mdash; for professional development for teachers to improve graduation rates among emotional support students. The school also won a $10,000 Multi-Tier Support System grant to help improve math outcomes for all students.
				And the district sought and obtained a waiver allowing it to use some of the federal money known as Title IV grants to purchase additional Chromebook computers for students.

WVW changes plan, opts for full-remote learning through Oct. 9