The San Ramon Valley Unified School District has taken another step toward returning to full-time in-person learning with the decision to bring hybrid students back to full-day, in-person instruction for four days a week.

Unanimously voted upon by the Board of Education during a special meeting on Thursday, secondary school students whose families have opted for in-person instruction are now set to begin the new scheduling on Monday while elementary students will do so on Tuesday.

“I would like to ask our parent community, that is so important to this process and who we value deeply, to work with us and to come together now so that we can do the best for our students. There’s been a lot of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and a lot of differences. It’s gotten really nasty, let’s just be honest… I just want to ask that we all come together,” SRVUSD board member Shelley Clark said during Thursday’s roughly two-and-a-half-hour meeting.

Student cohorts will now be able to learn on their school campuses for the entire day, as opposed to the previous model where they would only attend class in-person during either a morning or an afternoon block.

District staff said the decision to begin full-time in-person four days a week was initiated after state’s revisions of its distancing guideline, which have reduced social distancing mandates from 6 to 3 feet, aligning California’s policies with those established by the U.S. Center for Disease Control. This change allows more students to return to campus at once.

Students whose families elected to remain remote will be largely unaffected by the new scheduling, which will still be able to accommodate full-time remote students.

“What we are talking about now is how we deal with our hybrid students in the classroom, those who have returned in-person,” board vice president Ken Mintz said. “The reason I want to be focused on this is, even though we are not focused this evening on our students who are staying remote, it is critically important that everyone recognize that those students are very, very important to us.”

SRVUSD families are expected to receive additional information on the reopening plan in the coming days. Residents can learn more about the district’s reopening together plan on the SRVUSD website.

This article was originally published by Danville San Ramon.