April 26, 2025
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Genoa-Kingston schools to return to in-person learning five days a week starting March 8

Classroom learning will be for five hours per day, five days a week.

By Katrina J.E. Milton
Genoa-Kingston High School students exit the building Tuesday, Jan. 19, after the first day back for in-person classes since the school was closed earlier this school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Genoa-Kingston High School students exit the building Tuesday, Jan. 19, after the first day back for in-person classes since the school was closed earlier this school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Mark Busch - mbusch@shawmedia.com/Mark Busch - mbusch@shawmedia.co)

GENOA - Nearly a year after Genoa-Kingston students last experienced five days a week in classrooms, the Genoa-Kingston Board of Education this week approved a plan allowing kindergarten through twelfth grade students to return to in-person learning five days a week.

Starting March 8, school will be held in-person 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday at all G-K schools. A fully remote learning option will also be available. Grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches will be available free for all students.

Superintendent Brent O’Daniell described the return to in-person learning as “exciting” and something “that the district has looked forward to for a long time.” The last day G-K students attended school for a five-day school week in-person was March 12, 2020.

“We cannot offer hybrid and in-person every day at the same time,” O’Daniell said. “We’ve replaced the hybrid system with five days a week in-person learning. We’ve learned through the pandemic that there is no replacement for students to be together physically in a classroom together with an instructor.”

O’Daniell said that 80% of the district’s 1,575 students have chosen to return to in-person learning, with the other 20% opting to remain fully remote.

“We have made a very concerted effort to make sure our students and our staff feel safe at school,” he said. “All students and staff are required to wear a mask, hand sanitizer is in all classrooms and hallways, 6 feet of socially distancing will be in practice and we have rigorous disinfecting procedures every night. With the majority of our staff soon receiving the second dose of the vaccine and [COVID-19 positivity rate] numbers going down, we thought it was time to return to in-person learning.”

O’Daniell also mentioned that there will be a 44 student maximum limit on all school buses and that school bus drivers and substitute teachers are needed.

The move makes Genoa-Kingston DeKalb County’s largest district so far to return to a five-day in-person model. DeKalb District 428, the largest district, has students back in classrooms this month a few days a week, with a remote and in-person hybrid model. Sycamore District 427 students returned to a hybrid model last month, though parents again took a united stand during Tuesday’s school board meeting to call for more.

For more information about the Genoa-Kingston School District, visit www.gkschools.org.

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