KATY, Texas – Katy ISD is set to begin the school year with a virtual start on Wednesday morning.
More than 85,000 k-12th grade will begin the school year with online learning. Katy ISD Superintendent Dr. Ken Gregorski said that the district has been working for weeks to make sure that students have the technology needed to begin the school year. School officials are hopeful it will be a smooth start.
“We have spent some additional monies this summer to increase our bandwidth because we know a lot of people are going to be on our system. So we feel that our system is up and ready and functional to handle the capacity that it will need for students to get online,” the superintendent said.
Virtual instruction will continue for three weeks. After that, in-person learning will also be an option for students. The superintendent said that grading will be the same for both in-person and online instructions but the classroom environment will look and feel different this year.
“Things will look totally different than coming to school during normal times. All the way from when you get on the bus where every child getting on school transportation is required to wear a mask. There will be hand sanitizer on the bus. We will be able to do a little bit less seating on a bus with only hopefully have two per seat, that’s our goal right now,” the superintendent said.
Classroom and cafeterias will also have hand sanitizing stations and social distancing will be monitored, according to district officials.
“Our custodial teams will also come in every night and be cleaning the entire building,” said Dr. Gregorski.
All students will be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities. School officials said that many teams and groups have already started practicing with safety measures in place.
“We’ve had band, high school dance and cheer back. They all follow the same protocols. They are required to wear their masks but they can take the mask off when they are in heavy activity,” Dr. Gregorski said.