GOWANDA — Following months of discussion and precautions by the Gowanda Central Schools, Superintendent Dr. Robert Anderson outlined a plan for the Gowanda students to return to school.

On Monday, eighth-graders will return to in-person instruction while seniors, prekindergarten, and tier three students in kindergarten through fourth grade will all return on March 29. The rest of the grade timelines for returning are still up in the air. Tier three students, as outlined in Dr. Anderson’s presentation, are “students identified for intensive instructional interventions by an intervention teacher in areas of reading or math.”

“March and April there will be other groups and grades returning,” Dr. Anderson said. “We’ve got some tentative plans to bring others back shortly.”

When asked why eighth grade and not fourth grade, Dr. Anderson said they’ve put the focus on the neediest grade levels. “When you take a look at who is doing the poorest, these grades and groups were the ones who were identified as needing to come back as soon as possible,” Dr. Anderson said.

As far as what’s changed to allow the school to reopen, the most important factors are the decrease in community spread, the vaccine impacting the community, and the fact that the school has firm numbers for how many people will be in person for the second semester.

There are still some things that have not changed, making it difficult on Gowanda. The largest factor would be the physical space within the school and maintaining the distance given the limitations.

In addition, the school is expecting to face issues with transportation methods for getting students to school. Their hope is to have parents transporting the students to school.