While local school districts try to finish up the year and prepare for virtual or socially distant graduation ceremonies, they are also looking ahead to fall.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is asking districts to prepare for the possibility students will not return to full-time in-person classes.

“That makes it really difficult to make decisions in light of the fact that things may change 10 times in the next three months,” Fairfield City School District superintendent Billy Smith said Wednesday.

School districts across southwest Ohio face a unique challenge in trying to plan for August, when — in a normal year — students would be heading back to class.

“We don’t have a lot of answers,” Smith said. “We do anticipate that the start of the next school year will not be a traditional one.”

School districts hope for a traditional start to next school year, but they are also preparing for the possibility that remote learning will still play a role by the time classes resume.

“We know that along with businesses and our entire economy that we’ve been hit very, very hard,” Princeton City Schools superintendent Tom Burton said. “So being flexible in our approach is absolutely critical and that’s what we need to do.”

DeWine suggested a two-day blended learning plan in which students are split up into two groups. Each group would have two days of in-person classes each week, but on separate days from each other with remote learning the other three days a week.

“So, the moving parts would include, 'What about transportation?'” Burton said. “'What about scheduling? How many kids would be in a classroom? How many kids would be online while others in person?'”

Burton and Smith both acknowledged a blended learning plan could be difficult for working parents to handle. In the end, however, both superintendents said student safety is the top priority and they will follow the state’s guidance and recommendations.

“It’s difficult to get too deep into the planning process when you don’t have any parameters,” Smith said.

Lakota School District released this statement regarding its plans for the fall:

"While we traditionally begin planning for the new school year in January, our plans now include re-imagining what school might look as a result of COVID-19. Several weeks ago, district leaders began talking about several different scenarios for the fall so that we are prepared for the directives we will eventually receive from the State. While we certainly hope that August will bring a traditional start to the new year, we know that it is a very real possibility that remote learning will be a part of it in some capacity."

YADKIN COUNTY, N.C. —

Forty-five middle school students from North Carolina got sick Monday afternoon for an unknown reason.

Sixth graders at Starmount Middle School in Yadkin County began complaining about feeling nauseous with headaches. Some students had thrown up.

Only sixth graders were affected, neither seventh nor eighth-graders reported becoming sick, according to the Yadkin County Schools superintendent.

In response to the mysterious epidemic, the school did a shelter in place to keep unaffected students away from the others that were ill.

"I understand parents were nervous and upset. No messaging went out [from the school] because I can tell you, I saw first hand, administration and front office staff were focused on helping students. That's first priority," Yadkin County Schools Superintendent Todd Martin said.

First responders came to the school to help and check the students out.

Yadkin County Schools and the Yadkin County Health Department are investigating the strange illness that affected the 45 students.

Most of the affected students returned to school the following Tuesday.

There were rumors of a CO2 leak, but Martin said that was ruled out.

Officials are investigating possible food poisoning, but this has not been confirmed as the cause of the sickness.

Parents should hear from the school Monday evening.

This is a developing story, check back for more updates.

As schools head back to the classroom, many people have questions about what, if anything, will change in schools after the pandemic.

WCPO 9 anchor Julie O'Neill talked with Lakota Local Schools Superintendent Matt Miller about the upcoming school year, requiring students to wear masks indoors and how the district will handle pandemic setbacks.

JO: How much catching-up time do you think you need, generally speaking, for kids?

MM: There's one train of thought that calls that learning loss. I prefer to use the term school loss, because it's not just the academic piece. It's the relationships. It's the sports. It's the band. So I don't think we're going to be able to answer that yet until all the kids are back.

We are in a fortunate position in Lakota that our kids were at least offered in-person learning from the get-go last year. Last year at our peak we were at about 4,000 students that were on our virtual learning option. This coming school year we're down to about 350.

JO: Do you foresee some kids continuing with just online going forward, whether COVID's a threat or not?

MM: Yeah, I do think that there is a sliver of our student population that will want to continue to learn, the virtual learning option, moving forward. It's actually something at Lakota we've been talking about doing. Just providing as an option for our families even pre-COVID.

JO: What about the emotional peace for students? What are you doing here to prop them up?

MM: We have a pretty robust guidance program for our kids, and we actually have added to the social-emotional learning components in a class for our K through 6 kids, so we brought that online because we knew we were going to have some issues we were going to have to address.

One of the other things that Lakota has done is we've ramped up our therapy dog program for our kids. We have seven therapy dogs now for the district. The therapy dogs are trained to de-escalate, to help kids, and adults for that matter, with anxiety and things like that.

JO: All right, what do you want to say to the kids, to the staff as they head to school today?

MM: I think the biggest thing that I'm excited about with this new school year is welcoming our kids back. This just feels like a different year in terms of how different it had been in the past year and a half. Our kids do amazing things. I don't think our kids get enough credit for their accomplishments and what they do, and certainly that can also transcend into the teachers and staff. I'm just excited to welcome people back. Let's go.

CINCINNATI —

In the last 72 hours, 16-year-old Oliver Santiago made the kind of decision that Tianay Amat fully supports.

"I started thinking (about getting vaccinated)," Santiago said. "I talked to my family, my mom, and she told me, 'Take the vaccine, and everybody is going to be safe.'"

With his family's guidance, Santiago got his first dose of protection against COVID-19 Monday at a clinic for students at Aiken High School.

"It feels good because I'm saving my family, my friends, my community," Santiago said.

Amat said the decision students like Santiago are making -- to get vaccinated -- should help classrooms in the Cincinnati Public School District look and feel more like they did during pre-pandemic days when the new year starts in August.

"Our hope is that we can open five days for all families; that it's a safe environment," Amat said. "We're going to continue to look at our data and monitor and make decisions as we go."

Amat is the district's interim superintendent. She assumed the title after Laura Mitchell announced her resignation last month.

"(I was) born and raised in Brooklyn, New York," she said.

When the native New Yorker came to Greater Cincinnati she worked as a principal in the Princeton City School District and in Lakota's curriculum department.

"Then I had to come back home to CPS, where I reopened Hyde Park school; and now, here as the interim superintendent," Amat said.

At Aiken High School Monday, Amat and principal Lisa Votaw were grateful for local health workers who vaccinated students in an effort to keep the coronavirus out of classrooms, once and for all.

"The kids are excited to have the opportunity," Votaw said. "They're excited. They're relieved. They want to be back at -- normal is really the goal."

in addition to checking on the status of student vaccinations, Amat also focused on the district's Summer Scholars program. As part of the program at Aiken High School, students do four hours of academic work followed by two hours of enrichment activities, which can range from cooking to gardening to playing ping pong with classmates.