Tallinn schools allowing students to return

Tallinn municipal schools are planning on allowing students who have been on remote learning since the October school holiday to return to class. Only some classes will be sent to study from home in the coming week, with others rotated. The Tallinn Education Department will no longer interfere in decisions.
Heads of Tallinn schools who spoke to ERR said that the city's orders will be followed in terms of ensuring dispersion of students. Remote learning will be ordered mainly for classes where students are diagnosed.
Principal of the Pelgulinna High School Tõnu Piibur said he does not see remote learning as a big problem. "We are treating this situation as getting to know different forms of study," he said.
Piibur added that grades 2-3 will likely be sent home from next week as a few students have tested positive. Children who have been studying remotely until recently (grades 4-8) will be allowed to return to school.
Toomas Pikhof, principal of the Pirita High School of Economics, said the school will be following the city's guideline of keeping 30-50 percent of students home. Because high school students have been diagnosed there, the school will be sending home grades 10-12.
Principal of the Mustamäe Humanities High School Viktoria Shapovalova said that the school will try to follow the education minister's recommendation of not keeping entire classes on remote learning for longer than three days and will be rotating classes as a result.
Heads of major schools with more than 1,000 students said that dispersion will prove challenging and that studying in so-called isolated bubbles is largely unfeasible.
The Tallinn Education Department told ERR that it is no longer monitoring how schools organize remote study and ensure dispersion. It will be up to each individual school. Schools have been ordered to disperse 30-50 percent of students.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski