PALO ALTO — Middle and high school students in Palo Alto now have the option to come back to school in person as soon as March 1, making Palo Alto Unified one of the first school districts in the Bay Area to set out a plan to bring back secondary school students.

Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Don Austin made the announcement Tuesday during a school board meeting where he presented a reopening plan that also calls for 6th grade students to return March 1. Seventh through 12th grade students will return as soon as Santa Clara County enters the red tier of coronavirus restrictions, but no earlier than March 1.

The announcement is a sharp reversal from the warning Austin gave to parents just weeks ago that 7th through 12th grade students would not be able to come back to school this year. Mountain View Los Altos School District is also eyeing a similar plan.

“It’s a model that gets students back so they can have some interaction and get out of the house,” Austin said. “This will be a bridge and step toward getting teachers back on campus, some of our staff have not stepped foot on a campus since March last year.”

Though it will be the first time this many students will be returning to school sites in Palo Alto, it will hardly be like normal.

Only a fraction of students who said they’d like to attend school in person are expected to return to the district’s three middle schools and two high schools. About 58% of Palo Alto parents across all three middle schools surveyed said they’d return for in-person instruction, Austin said.

From 7th grade to 12th grade, students are expected to stay in what Austin called “Zoom rooms” with a teacher, since they will still be taking classes virtually while at school.

Austin said the block scheduling officials have come up with will help keep numbers inside school sites down. For instance, if a 7th grade class has 26 students, only half will be allowed to show up on any given day, and only a percent of those students will show up based on surveys the district has conducted and will conduct in the coming weeks, Austin said.

“We’re going to see classes of 10 or less students,” he said.

The optional nature of the plan is also key, Austin said. If a family decides they want to keep their student at home, “they can,” he said.

“They can attend either way and they don’t have to make a commitment for the entire year,” Austin said. “That would alleviate some anxiety around what feels like a high stakes decision. It allows students to stay home easily if they’re not feeling well or don’t want to travel, and it should reduce instances of people coming to school.”

Parents who have been clamoring to get their kids back in schools — and even gathered this week in protest to re-open schools — welcomed the announcement as a sigh of relief. Other parents who have opposed the plan fear the pandemic will worsen as a result.

Palo Alto resident Jenna Mark, who called into Tuesday’s board meeting, said the trustees’ actions were “tone deaf.”

“Hospitals are not even operating at maximum capacity and what the parents are saying sounds like anti-vax propaganda,” she said. “There are flimsy safety measures in place and no clean air circulation for staff and students. The board is obviously not able to understand what red tier is. Bragging about being a part of this is not something to be proud of.”

But PAUSD parents Heidi Voltmer and Stephanie Compton, who expressed support for the plan Tuesday, said reopening is key to getting students out of the mental health crisis many are experiencing as a result of isolation since the start of the pandemic.

A survey in June 2020 by national surveyor Gallup found nearly three in 10 parents say their child is “already experiencing harm” to their emotional or mental health because of social distancing and school closures. Another 14% say their children are “approaching their limits.”

Voltmer said she opted both her children into the school district’s hybrid learning plan and is pleased to see the district taking another step toward having in-person school again. She said her children had been struggling academically and mentally and saw a difference. She urged parents to be flexible.

Compton said she can certainly relate.

“It hurts quite a bit when you see other schools in other counties and other state that actually have secondary kids in person,” Compton said. “I really want to emphasize how desperate we are to get our kids back in school socializing with each other and with teachers. Right now they are hurting so bad, they’re lonely and they’re going to need a lot of support.”

Acknowledging criticism he and the school board have received for “changing course” and forging ahead for a secondary school reopening process, Austin said it should be nothing new to parents.

“We’ve always said two things,” Austin said. “We’re going to make decisions based on county public health and that as conditions change our decisions will change. The conditions changed, and the decisions reflect that.”