ROYAL CITY — Officials with school districts throughout the Columbia Basin are looking at options for reopening this fall, and districts are coming to different conclusions. Royal School District officials tentatively are planning some on-campus instruction, while the Wahluke School District will start the year online.

Schools statewide were closed in March in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and they stayed closed through the end of the school year. The coronavirus has not gone away in the summer, although it’s more active in some communities and counties than others.

Governor Jay Inslee announced in a Wednesday press conference that he is recommending that counties identified as “high risk” start the school year with only online instruction. He left the final decision up to individual school districts.

Inslee said a high-risk county has more than 75 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 residents over a two-week period. By that measurement, Grant County qualifies as high-risk.

Wahluke’s interim superintendent, Andy Harlow, said in an online community forum July 30 that the current status of the outbreak in Mattawa, which is in Wahluke School District, made it unlikely the district would be allowed to have students and staff on campus. As of Aug. 5, Mattawa and the surrounding area had 300 confirmed cases since the pandemic began.

As a result, all instruction in Wahluke schools will be online at least through the first quarter.

The first day of school is scheduled for Aug. 28. Wahluke officials are considering delaying the first day of school for two weeks to allow parents and kids more time to prepare, Harlow said.

The online learning experience should be better than it was in the spring, he said. What Harlow called “Online 2.0” will include more training for teachers and classes for parents.

The district has hired three people to go out into the community and talk to district patrons, to help them find additional training and materials.

The tentative plan in Royal calls for kids to be in school at least part of the time, depending on the grade level. Superintendent Roger Trail, detailing the plan in an online community meeting July 29, said kindergarten through third grade would go to school five days per week, and district officials hope to extend that to fourth and fifth grade.

Sixth- through eighth-graders and Royal High School students would be on campus all day two days per week and taking online instruction two days. The fifth weekday would be dedicated to extra instruction for kids that needed it.

Parents can opt for all-online instruction, Trail said.

All people entering Royal school buildings would be screened before they entered, people would have to follow social distancing guidelines, Trail said, and adults and children would be required to wear masks.

Trail warned that conditions could change, and the district could be forced to go with online-only instruction.