The Coupeville School District won’t be entertaining the thought of returning any more students to in-person learning until 2021.

Instead, the school district is planning to stick to its current plans and will only return a select few students who are most in need of interaction to the school buildings.

In a letter to the community and in a presentation to the school board, Superintendent Steve King explained that this decision was made because of the large increase in COVID-19 cases over the past few weeks.

As of Thursday night, Island County has had 389 cases and a case rate above 25 per 100,000 cases in a two-week period.

Before the increase, King said there were plans in place to begin hybrid learning — a combination of days spent learning at home and days spent learning at school — for kindergarten through third grade, with fourth and fifth grades being added later.

A parent survey showed that 71 percent of respondents favored this model for their children.

But with the recent increase in cases and the upcoming holidays and flu season, the decision was made to delay these plans until the New Year.

The school board will re-evaluate at its meeting scheduled for Jan. 11, 2021.

King said an effort will be made to increase in-person learning opportunities during this time for a small number of students who are not engaging with remote learning and those furthest from educational justice.

Groups doing in-person learning will be limited to five students or less, and no more than 60 students will be in a school building at any given time.

But in the meantime, most of the grades will continue with remote learning.

Preschool, kindergarten and special education students are the only ones on campus participating in some in-person learning at this time.