Following a new push from state officials, several school districts Tuesday announced plans to bring students back to in-person learning in January.

District leaders called the plans tentative, and urged their communities to help COVID transmission continue to decrease so that schools can remain open once students return.

The plans in Aurora, Adams 14, and Cherry Creek school districts build in some days of remote learning in early January to allow districts to watch for a new surge of cases following the holidays.

In Aurora, school board members began the meeting with a statement noting they believe in-person instruction is “extremely important.” Aurora board members have struggled with allowing the superintendent to make decisions and have reversed his reopening plans. This time, the board refrained from an official vote, and said they were “empowering and encouraging” district leadership to create a plan and make a decision.

Superintendent Rico Munn told the board the tentative plan is to have students begin the spring semester on Jan. 11 remotely to allow staff time to learn new procedures and to continue to track cases. Students of all grades would return to buildings with a hybrid model of alternating weeks in school and online on Jan. 19.

While board members still had questions about the district’s plan and concerns about staff workload, most were generally supportive of the plan.

In neighboring Cherry Creek, the school district’s plan is to bring students back on Jan. 11 after starting the semester remotely. But details of the plan will hinge on whether the two-week case rates drop below 500 per 100,000. That’s a figure district and state officials have identified as the tipping point where they struggled to keep enough staff operating school buildings.