GOWANDA — Superintendent Dr. Robert Anderson said the Gowanda Central School district is examining the possibility of returning students to in-person instruction at grades prekindergarten through fourth. As of now, they’re working on seeing what they are able to accommodate based on the space the school has.

If a return does come, it would be four days a week, with one day remaining remote. There currently is not a specific timeline.

“I’ve gone through a range of emotions in the last week,” he said. “I really thought I and the stakeholders could figure something out, but we started peeling back layers and finding new problems. I’m hopeful in the near future we’ll have a timeline to bring some grades back.”

Gowanda started off the school year with 50% hybrid learning, but due to a large community outbreak around Thanksgiving, the school went fully remote. They then returned to 50% hybrid on Jan. 19. Anderson said the school has tried to make people’s lives easier by not shifting phases too often.

“We’ve been pretty conservative about moving from one scenario to another, to make sure we’re not too far ahead and having to pull back,” said Dr. Anderson. “And also to prevent yo-yo-ing and moving from one scenario back to another in a week.”

In regard to what’s changed, Anderson noted several things. For one, the Department of Health close contact regulations. In addition to that, things such as decreased community spread, the vaccine rollout, in addition to outside pressure to reopen. Even though there are some things that have changed to loosen restrictions, there are also things that haven’t changed.

“Most notably is the 6 feet distance requirement,” he said. “Our failure to comply with this would hold our district liable and face adverse consequences. We are required to take steps to reduce transmission.”

As has been the case with other schools in the area, space is the biggest limiting factor for Gowanda. With the standard being that 6 feet, fitting students in the building for a return would be contingent on maintaining social distance with the students.

“One problem to think about is, for example, if we brought back one grade level of students to full instructions, that would bring back about 25 students,” Anderson said. “Assuming they’re elementary students, they’d be transported by bus, meaning we’d need parents to sign off on bringing their kids to not crowd the bases. We also run into problems with the cafeteria, meaning we’d need a new space, which means we’d need new supervisors and to clean the furniture there. There are a lot of nuances.”

Anderson said that he and the board have received many questions about why other schools have come back to school, but Gowanda hasn’t. The reason for this, Anderson said, is student enrollment and how different schools are spaced out.

“Some districts have created new space by adding classrooms in the past,” he said. “Our elementary school is undersized for its needs, and that was known before the pandemic. Some smaller districts are organized in one complex, which makes it easier to share space. Some districts just have larger classrooms.”