YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Thousands of students in the Youngstown City School District returned to in-person learning for the first time Monday since the onset of the pandemic's health and safety restrictions in March of last year.

Students in grades 6 through 12 will have in-person classroom instruction on Mondays and Fridays, then the younger students in pre-kindergarten through 5th grade will attend school Tuesdays and Thursdays starting this week.

"We just want to be cautious and make sure that everybody's safe," Justin Jennings said, district CEO for the Youngstown City Schools. "Hopefully with the vaccination and getting a large percentage of our staff vaccinated, that people feel more comfortable."

Students and staff must maintain social distancing and must wear their masks in school. Desk shields were installed in classrooms and seating areas are marked to ensure social distancing.

The staggered class model will also allow the district to close all buildings on Wednesdays each week for cleaning.

Families had the option to continue with all remote learning this semester.

Jennings says they'll monitor student performance closely with testing, so they can determine which courses and areas of each subject to offer in the summer.

The district is planning a four week summer intensive learning program for all students.

About 3,000 students in the Warren City Schools returned to class for full-time in-person learning on Monday, which is about two-thirds of the overall number of students enrolled.

About 1,500 students were learning on a hybrid model up until this point.

"Everyone's excited for the kids to come back," Steve Chiaro said, superintendent of Warren City Schools.

Like Youngstown, Warren city schools will maintain a focus on core subjects to see where students need help catching up on their coursework.

Chiaro is confident the safety measures in place will work to keep kids in class.

"As long as everyone is making properly and is continuing to follow mitigating factors and not let their guard down, I feel very confident that we will have a successful last nine weeks of school here," Chiaro said.

He says the district has a three prong plan to get students caught up on school work and subject where they may have fallen behind.

In addition to getting students back into classrooms full-time, the district will offer summer instruction starting in June for grades kindergarten through 11. Details on that program will be announced in April.

The third phase is to offer a compacted curriculum for all students in core subjects this fall.

"For the first four to six weeks of school next year, we'll have some revisions to our curriculum maps that will offer both learning from the prior year as well as the current year and drawing those connections together," Chiaro said.