School districts are at different reopening phases, but the doors are again opening.

When schools shut down in Monterey County a year ago, it happened suddenly, before any cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the county.

Now, as the infection rate keeps declining in and educators are getting vaccinated, school districts are reopening for in-person instruction. But this process is much more gradual and layered than closing was.

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District is finalizing its plans to return in person. On April 8 and 9, students from transitional kindergarten to fifth grade are scheduled to return to classrooms.

But it will look different than classrooms did pre-pandemic: For students who do return for in-person learning, they will attend school only twice a week in groups of 10 to 15, and three times a week from home via Zoom.

“Parents are under the assumption when they choose face-to-face on their surveys that the students will now get math and reading instructions live in the classroom, and this is not the case,” Katherine Uppman, a fifth-grade teacher at JC Crumpton Elementary, said during an MPUSD board meeting on March 9.

Administrators are still in negotiations with the Monterey Bay Teachers Association deciding how teachers will do in-person instruction. The challenge: Since not all students are in the classroom simultaneously, teachers will need to serve both in-person and virtual learners.

MPUSD Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh says the administration expects staff and teachers will have at least the first dose of the two-dose Covid-19 vaccine before elementary students return to classrooms.

Educators became eligible to register for vaccinations on March 3. Nearly one-third of people who work in the sector in Monterey County have made appointments for a first dose in the month of March.

Meanwhile, Alisal Union School District reopened its 12 schools on March 1 and March 8. Groups of 10 students have returned to classrooms twice a week. Their desks are surrounded by clear acrylic, and there is an empty seat between each student.

A total of 300 students have returned, just about 3 percent of AUSD’s 9,000-person student body. Superintendent Jim Koenig says the district hopes to offer in-person instruction by early April to all students who are interested.

But under the current public health guidelines, that is not easy. Diffenbaugh hopes the California Department of Public Health reduces its current guidelines for schools from six feet to three feet of distancing between students, as schools in New York and Massachusetts have done.

He says returning to full in-person instruction will be challenging because classrooms simply don’t have the space to accommodate all students with a six-foot separation.

But that is the goal: “Bringing kids back in-person will have a tremendous positive impact on our students’ mental and emotional health,” Diffenbaugh says.