The Falls Church City Schools will be the first in Virginia to go to all in-person class instruction beginning next Tuesday, April 6.

Grades K-5 will resume full-day, five-day-a-week in-person instruction beginning April 6th. Parents can opt to keep their child in the virtual model.

Grades 6-12 will return to full-day, in-person instruction on April 6. Parents can opt to send their students to school for four days in-person and one-day asynchronous.

According to the City Schools, after April 6, any moves back to virtual will be based on the need to “pause” isolated groups to allow for contact tracing or other similar issues. FCCPS will make these decisions in collaboration with the Fairfax Health Department.

It was noted that all schools can be moved into Virtual Instruction by the Office of the Governor or the Virginia Department of Education and will not reopen until the order is lifted and data supports reopening.

In all cases, temporary pauses where students will return to virtual learning due to Covid-19 positive results for students or staff may occur for classrooms or entire schools. Decisions to close a classroom/school/program will be made by the Central Office and School-based Administration in consultation with the Fairfax Health Department.

FCCPS monitors the implementation of the “5 Key Mitigation Strategies” for the third CDC Core K-12 Indicator. The data are regarding the wearing of masks, hand hygiene, social distancing, cleaning/disinfecting, and contact tracing.

Mitigation “walkthroughs” will be conducted every seven days, moving to a 14-day cycle as appropriate after that. A team of staff trained in the process conduct “walkthroughs.”

Each school will conduct internal monitoring observations as appropriate based upon the needs of the individual building. All data will be collected in the FCCPS School Level Observation Tool Google Form and shared with building leadership upon completion.