With the number of students coming back to schools in-person this November, some students may be forced to change classes mid-year.

At the Greater Essex County District School Board, 1,879 students are returning to the classroom while only about 500 are moving to a virtual or paper-package model.

“Our goal is to minimize disruption for both our staff and our students. Obviously, with the number of changes that are going to have to take place, it will mean that there may be some changes to classes within the schools,” said Chris Mills, superintendent of education – elementary staffing and information technology.

Mills said they will be looking deeper into the numbers and should have an idea in the next two weeks how many classes will be affected.

“It will again be dependent on where the students come. So if we have a number of students that come say into a Grade 5 classroom and that class size gets too high then we’d be looking at adding additional staff which means a teacher from the virtual school would come back to teaching in person,” said Mills.

Changes would take effect on November 9, 2020, when students would officially change models.

At the secondary school level, about 317 students are moving from virtual learning to in-person while 656 students are moving from in-person to virtual learning.

At the Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board, about 800 students at the elementary level are headed back to class while 100 are switching to the online model.