We are hybrid...I go every day in person, kids go either Mon/Thurs or Tues/Friday. I have a group of selected invitees with me on Wednesdays. So far, it's been fine. Mask wearing is mandatory. No mask=no school. Kids have not given us one iota of problem over it. They WANT to be in school. A couple of the elementary schools in our district have resumed fulltime hours, and so far, no problem. The elementary school right next door to me (where my own children went back in the day) has been FT from the start. No issues there either.
We started out hybrid with special ed kids coming in all 5 days. On November 9th, we went back to 4 days a week (special ed still in every day). However, the parents were notified that if they chose to send their children in every day, there will be no social distancing. There is no way in our district to keep desks 6 feet apart. Most of the parents continued to send their children to school. The district installed plastic shields on all desks.
In NY there are very strict requirements about keeping kids in school . If they have even one symptom of Covid (and almost everything is a symptom of Covid) they have to be sent home and may not return without a negative Covid test or a confirmed alternate diagnosis (like strep throat, influenza - no "common cold, upper respiratory infection, etc").
We have over 9,000 students in the district, and we have sent hundreds home with this criteria. I think 3 have turned up positive. However, the cases were not traced to school, but the community. One was directly traced to Halloween. I believe that with our safety measures in place, students and staff are relatively safe in school.
We have had several dozen cases, however, and they have all been from home/community. When a student turns up positive, the close contacts in school have to quarantine at home for 14 days. Prior to the return to full time school, hardly anyone was deemed a close contact because all desks were 6 feet apart and masks are worn at all times. A few times a school closed for a couple of days while the health department was figuring out who to quarantine. Last week I had 2 nurses out on quarantine, one for a student exposure and one for a family exposure. Several teachers were out due to contact quarantines. These quarantines are putting a strain on the school staffing. I fear that when the second wave comes (it is starting to heat up again), we won't have the staff to allow schools to stay open.
If a school district has entered the yellow zone, the only way to stay open is to test 20% of the school population weekly. That means 2,000 tests between the students and the staff members. I do not have any idea how the 13 school nurses will be able to perform those along with the clinic visits and the case management of all of the students out, requiring medical documentation to return. Apparently only RNs can administer the tests. I have a meeting about it on Tuesday, and I am dreading it.