In a statement issued on Oct. 26, the Falls Church City Public Schools announced that the hybrid reopening plan will continue as scheduled despite a slight increase in regional Covid-19 incident rates.

The statement, published in the Monday announcements, said, “We continue to monitor the health data and meet weekly with the Fairfax County Health Department (FCHD). We moved from ‘low’ to ‘moderate’ in our regional metrics. This change is due to slight increases in case incident rates earlier last week and a nursing home outbreak. FCHD says there is no indication of a surge in the data, and we remain lowest in the region. We continue to meet the moderate threshold for hybrid reopening. Our plans are on track, and we expect them to remain so unless there is a significant change in multiple data points or receive notice from the VDOE, VDH, or FCHD to alter our course. There is no single data point that we will use. This process is a “dial-up/dial-down” rather than an “on/off” switch. We have robust mitigation strategies in place and will be leveraging small group sizes to support our efforts. There’s not a playbook for this, and we are navigating based on science. Our decisions will be condition bound, not time-bound, with our continued commitment to protecting the health and safety of our FCCPS learning community.”