BEATRICE – Beatrice Public School officials say its good to have students back in buildings attending classes….and so far, so good with the coronavirus pandemic.

After an early-in-year jump in positive cases at one of the elementary buildings, the district is now showing no active Covid cases.

Assistant High School Principal Phil Voigt told the board of education Monday night that students and staff have adapted well to a different way of doing things during the pandemic.

“We spent a lot of time thinking through and planning for students coming back. What that translated into was one-directional hallways, obviously the masks, temperature checks…we’re averaging about sixty temperature checks a day, as kids come in.”

Voigt says both the students and staff have embraced chances such as different cafeteria set-ups.

“I’ve been very proud of our student body, I know they’re excited to be back, which is great.  But, they’ve also done an incredible job of adapting to the change.  Our teachers have done an incredible job of adapting to the changes that we’ve asked them to do.”

One of the major changes during the pandemic is going to block scheduling, which lengthens out the time students are in a class….promoting less movement between student groups.

“Teachers and students are actually liking the block schedule. They feel that they have more time to spend together to build relationships and they have covered more content in that time. There are some students who feel like it is a real long time in there, but our teachers have done a really great job of incorporating a lot of mask breaks.  The weather has been great, and I’ve seen classrooms outside, every period…and I’m hoping that some of these changes including going outside, having classes outside, can continue even after this is gone.”

Superintendent Jason Alexander said it’s been so nice seeing kids back in school and see them participating in what they love to do.

“It’s probably the most highly-debated school year ever, but I’m thankful for the students and the staff that we have in place right now during this time period, because it’s been good.”

Alexander said one event that will be moved to later in the year is the district’s fall musical…..which is being moved to February.

At Monday night’s board of education meeting, a new student member of the board was sworn in.  Senior Colt Dittbrenner will serve as a non-voting member of the board.