Farmington Municipal Schools ready to welcome back more students

FARMINGTON N.M.- Middle and high school students have not been at school since March but Farmington Municipal schools will bring back some of those students back starting next week.

“It’s something that we’ve been waiting for a long time, we have permission from the Public Education Department to return to learn in a hybrid model,” Dr. Eugene Schmidt, superintendent of Farmington Municipal Schools.

Some sixth and ninth grade students will return on Feb. 9 to get adjusted to their new school. The other grades will follow on Feb. 16.

Students will be divided into cohorts A or B, attending in person only twice a week. The cohorts will be decided by the schools.

“First of all we can’t and aren’t going to exceed 50% of students enrolled in a given day and also ensuring that if we do get close to that 50% that students can still maintain 6 feet apart in their classrooms” said Nicole Lambson, executive director of curriculum and instruction.

Parents and students are given the choice of remote learning. It’s also been a few weeks now that some pre-k, k through fifth grade and some jumpstart students returned for the hybrid model.

“We think that we can bring back kids from what we have learned in the pre-K through five environment if we are careful with cohorting and we follow our practices that we can bring kids back,“ said Dr.Schmidt

District officials say it’s been challenging opening the schools but now the challenge is to keep them open. They hope parents and students can also do their part.