Gov. Andrew Cuomo Friday announced that schools across the state can open this fall based on each region’s infection rate, which he previously said must be below 5%.

The rate for Pelham’s region has ranged between 0.7% and 1% over the past three days.

“The department of health will review submitted reopening plans from school districts and notify districts of their status on Monday,” said a release from the governor’s office. “The determination of how individual districts reopen—in-person vs a hybrid model—will be made by local school districts under” strict health department guidance.

Pelham Union Free School District submitted three plans to the state: total in-person instruction, a hybrid model and one using all online learning. The Pelham district has said it will chose a plan by “mid-August.”

Which plan for fall school reopening do you prefer for the Pelham district?

• Full in-person, in-building learning
• Hybrid learning (mix of in-building and remote)
• Totally remote learning

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“Schools must also have three to five public meetings prior to August 21 with parents—who will be allowed to participate remotely—as well as one meeting with teachers to go through their reopening plan,” the release said. “Districts must post their remote learning plan online as well as their plan for testing and tracing students and teachers.”

“Based on our infection rate, New York State is in the best possible situation right now,” Cuomo said in the release. “If anybody can open schools, we can open schools. We do masks, we do social distancing, we’ve kept that infection rate down, and we can bring the same level of intelligence to the school reopening that we brought to the economic reopening.”