Principal Stafford Thomas sent an email to the student body Friday afternoon detailing that Staples High School students will be returning to school at 75% capacity starting March first. 

The email contained several new schedules and details regarding the change. 

“In this new Hybrid, each student will be in-school 3 days per week,” the email stated, “with 75% of our total student population present in the building each day.” 

The email additionally informed of the number of cohorts moving from two to four, which will still be designated alphabetically, but further split up then the cohorts currently in place. New cohorts will instead be with four of the five cohorts going in person three days a week, and the remaining cohort staying full online.

Staples social studies teacher Natalie Odierna feels that since members of the Staples community are so used to the cohorts in place now, it may take time for people to adjust to the new ones, but it could bring back a bigger sense of normalcy within the school.

“[T]aking attendance will also be a learning curve once again. I have it so ingrained in my mind my Cohort A and Cohort B students and which days I will see them,” Odierna said. “This will change groupings and instruction due to more students as well as students who have not been in class together, to be in class together now.”

Chloe Parkes ’24 feels that the new schedule could be problematic for students who wish to keep attending school only two days a week.

“I think that [it] would be unfair,” Parkes said. “Students should have an option over distance, full time, and hybrid.”

The new model will be an everyday rotation instead of the two day rotation that is in place at the moment, and will be split up as Cohorts A, C, B, F, and Cohort D, with D remaining the full online cohort. Current periods and class lengths will stay the same, and remote Wednesdays will continue. APO learning rules have also been changed to be stricter about when a student may choose to do APO learning.

“I hope that even though the rising capacity may bring stress and anxiety as well as frustration, staff and students can band together as we are all going through this together,” Odierna said. “This change will require patience, optimism, and compassion.”