Fredonia Central School will continue to adjust how students participate in school as COVID-19 cases fluctuate within the district.

Fredonia Middle School allowed with in-person instruction and a hybrid model last week, according to Dr. Brad Zilliox’s first superintendent report at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting.

“We continue to monitor what’s happening locally, in the state and nationally, in regards to the pandemic; we are more than willing to adjust and adapt our approach as needed,” Zilliox said. “The middle school last week was a good example of this where we suddenly and at the spur of the moment realized that we were not going to be able to staff the building as a result of people not being able to come to work. So, we adjusted and we adapted. That will continue.”

Zilliox talked briefly about cluster zones, noting that the district has sent out a consent form for COVID testing should the school become a microcluster zone in the future.

“In order to stay open we would have to engage in testing here at the school to make sure that our infection rate is low enough to continue in-person instruction,” Zilliox said before switching to vaccines and the fact that they are now available to education workers, teachers and Board of Education members.

Transitions from in-person learning to remote learning haven’t changed much in kindergarten to eighth grade, but that the district is seeing the most transition at the high school level where the percentage of students opting for virtual instruction has jumped from 29% to 41% over the last couple of weeks.

The district also held another return to school committee meeting Jan. 7, where they discussed the next phase of planning.

“The committee is asking that each building create a plan for next steps for return to school,” Zilliox shared. “Building-level meetings are happening this week; please note that we think it’s important that we’re moving forward with planning; when we can implement any of these plans are up for debate.”

Winter sports were also discussed briefly with low- to moderate-risk such as bowling, swimming, rifle and downhill skiing beginning this week, but high-impact sports, which include basketball, cheerleading, hockey and wrestling, will not start yet.