As students across the country wrap up their academic year from a distance, attention is turning to what classes might look like when school resumes this fall.

With no certainty about the status of the novel coronavirus in the months to come, school systems must prepare for adapted in-person classes, continued distance learning or some combination of the two.

“They don’t teach you this stuff in teacher school,” Jamestown, New York’s Public Schools Superintendent Bret Apthorpe said of the many questions educators will have to answer over the coming months. “As they start getting into the weeds of … what has to happen, it strikes me as a time in education like when 9/11 occurred.”

The terrorist attacks and an increase in mass shootings meant schools had to adapt to a new normal of increased security protocols that continue to this day.

“This is going to be a new chapter in education,” Apthorpe said.

Educators, students and families alike might hope for a return to business as usual, but it’s unlikely the 2020-21 school year won’t include any social-distancing protocols.

“It’s pretty Herculean,” Apthorpe said. “How do you social distance 5-year-olds? [Close proximity is] their natural state of being.”

Meanwhile, the Fort Dodge Community School District in Fort Dodge, Iowa, is looking at three back-to-school scenarios: having all students on-site, continuing distance learning and a hybrid approach, possibly with students attending on alternating days to limit the number in buildings.

“So how many kids would we be able to have in a given space if they have to stay six feet apart?” wondered Jennifer Lane, director of communications for the Fort Dodge school district.

The district has approximately 3,500 students between four elementary schools, a middle school, a high school and an early learning center. How many students could ride a bus and be in a classroom at the same time are factors that would have to be considered, Lane said.

The district has a one-to-one student-to-computer ratio for third-graders through high school seniors, so middle and high school students have been doing work online using Google Drive. Those who don’t have Internet access are sent hard copies of the assignments.

However, the device ratio is closer to 2-to-1 for kindergarten through second-graders, so schools are mailing out printed materials every two weeks. That will continue through the summer as well, Lane said.

Because of the disparity in devices and access, assignments for the latter part of the school year have been optional.

“It becomes hard, obviously, to require work when the student might not have a device,” Lane said. “Come fall, if we have to remain online, it would be required work.”

Part of the district’s “Return to Learn” plan includes exploring the feasibility of providing devices to all students.

The district is offering Internet access points outside its school buildings, and such service is also available at the Fort Dodge Public Library, Lane said. In addition, the district has purchased some portable wifi hot spots for students to use.

The West Virginia Department of Education has created a school re-entry task force. As recommendations come from that group, officials at Wood County Schools in Parkersburg will reach out to their stakeholders – including administrators, teachers and families – to scrutinize potential plans and find what works best, Superintendent Will Hosaflook said. That could include a staggered attendance schedule, he said, although there are challenges, including child care, especially for parents with children at different grade levels.

“Everyone’s going to have to be involved in this decision; it can’t just come from the top down,” Hosaflook said. “It’s much more intense than just bringing kids back to school.”

In the event a second wave of the virus forces schools to close, distance learning could once again become the norm. The West Virginia district is using federal C.A.R.E.S. Act funding to purchase $1.5 million worth of iPads, enough to have one for each of the district’s 12,384 students.

To address Internet access, free wifi is available outside each of the district’s 19 elementary, five middle and three high schools. School buses are being fitted with cradle points for wifi hot spots so they can be parked in areas that lack a signal.

Plexiglass screens are planned to be installed at access points where visitors come into contact with school personnel, and the district is acquiring larger electrostatic germ- and virus-killing sprayers.

Adam Steel, superintendent of School Administrative Unit 39 in Amherst, New Hampshire, has his doubts about bringing students to school on a staggered schedule.

“While it might come to that, I’m not sure how practical that really is,” said Steel, who oversees a district of 2,400 students in two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school.

Aside from child care challenges for parents, the situation might create a false expectation of socially distant learning, even with fewer students in attendance, he said.

“Even sophomores in high school, I think, would have a difficult time,” Steel said.

Still, that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be changes aimed at curbing any potential spread.

“Maybe we don’t do gym class,” Steel noted. “Maybe we don’t have 300 kids in the cafeteria at one time.”

One avenue under consideration is giving families the option of sending their children to school or having them continue with online learning. In a recent survey of nearly 1,000 district parents, about two-thirds indicated they would be willing to send their kids to school while one-third preferred keeping them home, Steel said.

“I think giving them a choice probably makes more sense than some sort of alternating schedule,” he said. “It’s early in the process, but that’s what we’re investigating at this time.”

Jamestown’s 4,800 students are spread throughout five elementary schools, three middle schools, a high school and a technical academy. They’ll finish this school year on June 10, before teachers and administrators turn their attention to the reopening plan for the fall, Apthorpe said.

Apthorpe feels like everybody “got a pass” with the forced switch to distance learning this spring.

“But we’re not going to get a pass in the fall,” he said. “The expectations are our staff, our students and our families have to be prepared.”

If students are able to return to school, they must do so in an environment that conforms to federal, state and local health standards. But it’s not just physical health that has Apthorpe concerned.

“It has to be safe for people’s mental health as well,” he said.

That means finding ways to convey the importance of social distancing and healthy practices without being too negative and frightening or upsetting younger students, Apthorpe said.

Various models will be considered by the district, including the option of distance learning for students with underlying medical conditions or those who have family members with conditions that might make them more susceptible to the virus.

“Middle school students may remain in the same classroom all day, including for lunch, while teachers would be the ones moving between classrooms,” Apthorpe said.

High school students who requested a laptop received one, and younger students were given iPads when the district shifted to learning at home. But Internet access is also an issue for continued distance learning, Apthorpe said, noting 70 percent of the district’s students live below the poverty level.

Jamestown is also looking at turning school buses into mobile wifi hot spots. There’s a cost to that, Apthorpe said, which must be taken into consideration as schools in New York face a reduction in state aid, which accounts for three quarters of Jamestown’s budget.