AT LEAST 18 schools in remote areas in Davao region will join in the pilot run of limited face-to-face classes, an official of the Department of Education said.

Jenielito Atillo, DepEd Davao spokesperson, said these schools are among the 120 that were allowed to conduct physical classes.

Atillo noted that no student will be forced to attend physical classes.

“The parents must be willing, by way of issuing a written consent, to let their children be a part of the pilot face-to-face classes,” he said.

The official expects more schools will be allowed to hold in-person classes.

“The pilot will run only for two months for us to determine what will be our ways forward. This is enough time for the department to decide which aspects we need to improve or whether to continue this or not,” Atillo said.

Before a school can join the pilot run, local officials have to write DepEd expressing their intent to participate.

“There is a need to secure the shared responsibility from the local government units to help ensure that the conduct of the in-person classes will be safe for everyone,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Mayor Sara Duterte said the city was asked to submit a list of public schools where F2F classes will be rolled out.

“The agreement is that the 182 barangays will be ranked according to risk assessment and the last three barangays (180, 181, 182) in terms of risk assessment will be selected for the pilot face- to-face. Our initial submission will be one school for each barangay,” Duterte said.