One out of every four students enrolled in Bristol Warren will learn from home this year, after their parents opted to keep them at home instead of allowing them to return to the classroom.

As of Wednesday, 850 students were designated as distance learners, out of a total student population of about 3,200. Parents had been given the option to choose which education model they prefer, and Superintendent Dr. Jonathan Brice said he is not surprised that about 26.5 percent opted to keep their children home.

“It does not surprise me that it is where it is,” he said Wednesday. “I expected a quarter to a third (would be kept home). I think we all as parents want to make the right decision for our children. Parents are really grappling with that.”

Though parents are also always given the option of home-schooling their children themselves, “we have not seen a noticeable increase in home school requests,” he said.

Though Dr. Brice said there will likely be a small number of parents between now and the opening of school on Sept. 14 who will change their minds on which model they prefer, he said the district is going to try to "hold the number" in order to efficiently assign students to teachers and cause fewer issues as opening day approaches. Students taught at home, like their counterparts who will return on Sept. 14, will be assigned teachers and will participate in schools’ online distance learning lessons.

Though parents were given the option to choose, teachers who may have wanted to teach from home were required to meet stringent requirements in order to distance-teach. Even then, they must be in school and cannot work from home.

“Staff only had that option if they have an underlying medical condition that their doctor has submitted and we have accepted,” Dr. Brice said. “We think that there may be two or three individuals that meet that criteria.”

Those teachers, he said, “will still be working from their classroom, but won’t have students in front of them.”

The district’s hybrid instruction model to start the year works like this:

The district will instruct all elementary students in person five days a week to start the year. Middle school students will operate under a schedule during which they will distance-learn at home two days, and in school three days, and then switch to distance learning for three days, and in school two days, every other week. At the high school, students will spend two days each on distance and in-person learning, with Mondays set aside as “virtual support” days.