During the Summit School District board meeting Tuesday, July 27, Interim Superintendent Roy Crawford said the district intends to operate in person, five days a week with transportation provided by the district next school year.

Crawford said nothing is definitive as information continues to shift daily, but he said he is hopeful to have definitive information on masking and other school protocols and operations by Aug. 9.

“It’s hard to give any definitive information right now … because it is shifting daily,” Crawford said. “However, the plan is that we’re in school five days a week for 175 days. … Hopefully that won’t be changing.”

Earlier in the day Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shifted its recommendations to encourage masking in schools, regardless of vaccination status, due to increasing spread of the COVID-19 delta variant.

Crawford said he and district leadership have been meeting with the Summit County Health Department to determine the best course of action. While two weeks ago he thought “we were in good shape,” delta variant data has since shifted dramatically.

Crawford said he is expecting to get more precise data about the delta variant in Summit County over the last five to seven days to drill more deeply into the data. He said the health department has been cooperative and wants the same outcome as the district.

“The bottom line is we want school open full time for the entire year, and so what precautions do we need to take so it’s open full time and we don’t need to back track?” Crawford said. “That’s kind of where we are at this point. I wish I could be more definitive, but … to say anything else would be speculative.”