GOWANDA — As the start of the school year gets closer, districts are discussing how and when to return their students to school. The Gowanda Central School District said that it intends on being fully in person for the upcoming school year, which begins on Sept. 7.

“The CDC released guidance with an emphasis on returning students to school full time,” said Gowanda Superintendent Dr. Robert Anderson. “We’re still waiting on guidelines from the state as well, but our plan the whole time has been to return kids on time.”

The members of the Gowanda School Board are excited to see the students return to the building full time, and Dr. Anderson expects it to look similar at the beginning to how the last school year ended. “It will look similar to how it did in June with additional precautions,” Dr. Anderson said. “I also encourage everyone who is eligible to get the vaccine.”

One point of contention that did arise was the plan for remote education. As it happens, the Gowanda School District does not plan on offering any kind of remote instruction, though Board Member Dollene Christopher said there may be some legal considerations to that, and also proposed some possible solutions.

“It’s my understanding that BOCES has fully remote classes and if you have students who are in that situation, you can contact them,” Christopher said. “But to say we are not doing it at all could be a legal issue down the road.”

Christopher said that both federal and state administrators have encouraged schools to have some virtual options for students who may have medical vulnerabilities, or family members who do. Dr. Anderson said that despite not planning on offering those services, he is in the process of finding out who would be in need of alternatives in order to help accommodate them.

“I’m just finishing up a survey to see how many people would be interested in having a 100 percent remote option,” Anderson said. “There are probably students out there who are medically vulnerable, so we do want to provide those opportunities to those students.”

Anderson said he’d be meeting with the Administration team in the coming days, then the leadership team later in the month before the plan for the year is hopefully finalized at the Sept. 1 school board meeting.