ELMIRA HEIGHTS, N.Y. (WENY) -- The Elmira Heights School District will stay 100% remote until next year. The decision was made on Tuesday night during the district's board of education meeting.

Elmira Heights Superintendent, Michael Gill tells WENY News the decision was not made lightly. 

"We understand that this is not a decision that's going to make, even a huge majority of people happy. We all recognize that. School is better with kids in person. Students learn better in person and that's what our whole set up is. We enjoy and love having our kids in our buildings. Its why we get into these jobs, we serve the community in that manner. But in these difficult times we've got to make this tough decision. Again with the idea that with such uncertainty, at least we would be able to add some sort certainty for our community," says Gill.

The Elmira Heights School District will stay 100 percent remote until January 4th, 2021. The board made the decision, after talking with school staff and reviewing data from a survey that was sent to parents, in which they got response from nearly 600 families about their willingness to have their children tested.

"If we were to try to come back in an orange zone designation, we would need to have 100 percent of all students and staff tested before having students back in-person," says Gill.

In order to hold in-person classes, the district would have to test all students and staff for COVID-19. Superintendent Gill says the logistics involved, including the timing and the amount of testing that would be needed for students and staff would be challenging. Gill also says more than half of the participants in the survey said, they did not want to have their students tested. 

"It was really an attempt to say to our families, OK we have had so much uncertainty over the last, really handful of weeks. We've had to close our middle school for two weeks, and then shortly there after we were closed because of the orange zone. That for planning purposes, the benefit to be able to make longer reach plans over the next handful of weeks was better than not," says Gill.

If Chemung County were to change to the green zone, Gill says they would be able to bring their students back in their hybrid model. 

"There is the yellow zone possibility and that is what the board will continue to monitor, and will continue to work, to potentially be ready to bring kids in, if it does change out of the orange zone," says Gill.