Even though public and charter schools in Sedona reopened online for preschool through 12th graders on Aug. 5, the in-person start date is still up in the air. Originally planned for Aug. 17, the new state recommendations would make it virtually impossible for schools to open on a limited in-person basis until at least a week after that.

Metrics released from Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s Office on Thursday, Aug. 6 are not fully met by any county in the state.

According to new dashboards on the Arizona Department of Health and Human Services, Yavapai County meets two out of the three benchmarks for reopening.

Benchmarks Met:

• A decline in cases, or less than 100 cases per 100,000 individuals for two consecutive weeks
• Two consecutive weeks with hospital visits for COVID-like illnesses in the region below 10%

Benchmarks Not Met:

• Two consecutive weeks with percent positivity below 7%

Dashboard data for a decline in Yavapai County cases shows benchmarks were just met, with 272 positive COVID-19 cases in the county, or 121 cases per 100,000 people on July 5, which decreased on July 12 to 214 cases, or 95 cases per 100,000 people. On July 19, county cases decreased again to 148 cases, or 66 per 100,000 people.

As far as Yavapai County reaching two consecutive weeks with hospital visits under 10%, they just made the mark at 9% hospital visits for COVID-like symptoms on July 5, but dropped to just 6.8% similar visits by July 12 and slightly decreased on July 19 with 6.6% COVID visits.

The county did not quite meet the benchmark for two consecutive weeks with below 7% positive COVID rates. On July 5, 9.4% of tests were positive, which increased slightly to 9.6% by July 12. The latest data available, from July 19, shows a decrease to 6.6%. If it shows that positive cases stayed under 7% the week of July 26, then the county would meet this benchmark and pass all three benchmarks.

Coconino County also passed all of the benchmarks except for two consecutive weeks under 7% positive COVID tests, declining from a 10.6% rate on June 5, to 8.9% on July 12, and then jumping again to 9.1% on July 19. However, many Coconino County schools, including all in the Flagstaff Unified School District, have already committed to not opening their doors for in-person learning until at least October.

In Yavapai County, districts have not finalized decisions on opening in-person. The Sedona-Oak Creek School District will hold a board meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 11 in order to discuss and decide whether to follow the state’s recommendations to not reopen. If they decide to open up when all of the benchmarks are met and another week’s results prove that, the schools could possibly open for an in-person hybrid model as early as Aug. 24.

For Sedona, a hybrid model would would mean half of the students would come to school in-person, while the other half would work from home, watching the classes virtually. Group A would go in on Mondays and Tuesdays, while Group B would go in on Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays, all students would work from home.

The public Zoom meeting will take place Tuesday at 4 p.m. and can be accessed at bit.ly/3fEnJAz. The meeting ID is 876 6157 0674 and Passcode 2PfVEp.

In the meeting agenda, instructions for participating in the call to the public is listed as follows:

“If you wish to participate in the call to the public, please use the Zoom chat box between 3:45 p.m. and 3:55 p.m. to provide the meeting host with the following information: Name, address, agenda, item about which you intend to speak. You will then be called upon to present to the board at the designated time. Each speaker is limited to three (3) minutes. Before you begin to speak, please identify yourself by clearly stating for the record your name and address.”

As the first business agenda item, Superintendent Dennis Dearden will speak about the metrics and discuss reopening. The discussion will then be turned to the school board council and administrators, and the school board council will either vote on the item or decide to vote at a later time. The public will not be able to comment after the call to the public.

“I think our board will want to make sure that whatever decision they make, it will be a safe decision to our school, students and staff,” Dearden said on Aug. 7.