The Long Beach Unified School District is rapidly approaching its Sept. 1 start for the school year, but many details remain in flux.

We know that the school year will start online, through at least the first week of October, and that the governor’s guidelines for physically reopening schools mean the wait will likely be longer. The possibility of reopening schools is now tied to coronavirus conditions across Los Angeles County.

In a live chat with the Long Beach Post Thursday afternoon, LBUSD’s incoming superintendent, Jill Baker, talked about the difficulty of trying to plan for a new school year with so many unknown as the COVID-19 pandemic still rages.

“It makes me sad that we are at this moment where we are because the public didn’t really do what they were supposed to do over time, and now our students are going to suffer because of it,” said Baker, nothing that online learning can never quite capture the magic of a classroom setting.

Nevertheless, Baker said, the district is trying to model online classes after a more normal school day, with teachers and students active for defined periods of the day that will include things like lunch breaks a projects where teachers interact with smaller groups of students.

The district is still finalizing what online platform it will use, but Baker said that and several other pieces of key information will be presented to the public at Wednesday’s LBUSD Board of Education meeting, at 5 p.m.

Training will be available for teachers, students, and parents on the new platform after it has been announced.

Baker said she’s hoping that people are now taking the coronavirus seriously, “so we can have the best potential to get back to school as soon as we can. I am keeping the hope, but I’m also a realist.”

Watch the full interview below: