The plan to get a plan continues on reopening schools in La Crosse County

They will likely keep hashing out a plan right up until that first day of school.

But, whether students get on a bus yet or not is still one of the details to be worked out.

Everyone, however, appears to be on board in getting there.

“In our county, all of our public and private schools have been meeting together to plan,” La Crosse County Health director Jen Rombalski said at a public briefing Monday afternoon. “We’ve been a part of those meetings and advising about what seems to make sense from the information and evidence we currently have.”

While every school district, every state, tries to figure things out, the virus is still very prevalent, including La Crosse County.

But, just to compare, the U.K. has averaged 624 COVID-19 cases the past week. Canada’s average is 331. Wisconsin alone added a single-day high 964 cases on Tuesday, while the entire U.S. has averaged 60,251 the past seven days.

So, schools in the U.S. are playing a different game gambling against the virus versus other countries, and can’t leave out any details.

Here are just a few things Rombalski brought up at a health briefing Monday afternoon on what to consider for reopening schools: “Making sure more areas of the school are available to be able to spread students out. Keeping maybe them in cohorts of students, so that if someone ends up being symptomatic and is infectious is that it isn’t the entire classroom that has to be quarantined. Very careful active monitoring processes with staff. Transportation and and how to make sure that spread doesn’t occur while kids are waiting for the bus or on the bus.”

New La Crosse School District superintendent Aaron Engel hopes to have that first day of school Sept. 1. Before that, the planning on a plan continues.

“Not all the details are completely figured out yet,” Rombalski said. “The goal is to have a solid draft planned by the end of the month.”