POLK COUNTY, Fla. -- Polk County schools are planning now for a fall reopening.

More than 30,000 people responded to the district's online survey offering opinions on reopening.

The district has also formed a task force made up of medical experts, school administrators, principals, parents, and community leaders to finalize plans for the reopening process.

"We see a strong sense for students to return to some sense of normalcy," said Michelle Townley, interim assistant superintendent of curriculum. "This has obviously weighed heavily on our students. School is a safe place for them and a part of their normal routine and so we're seeing quite a few parents wanting their kids to return to school in the fall."

Tonwley said they are considering a combination of in-person and online learning.

She said 50 percent of the students might be on campus Monday and Wednesday, the other half on Tuesday and Thursday, and then do all online learning on Friday while schools are cleaned.

She said there is a lot of support for more hand washing stations and additional cleaning but people are split about whether teachers and students should be required to wear masks.

"So we're leaning on medical experts in that regard," she said.

One area they said will be challenging is transportation.

About half of the district's 106,000 students ride school buses.

"It's almost impossible to do social distancing on a school bus," said Rob Davis, assistant superintendent for support services.

Davis said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out with guidelines that said there should be one student per seat and then a row between them.

"For us that would be 13 students per bus. We would need 1,328 school buses and drivers to accomplish getting students to school," he said. 

Right now, he said the district has about 500 buses.

Davis said they will be taking extra precautions.

"We've installed hand sanitizers on every bus, so if a student rode the bus, they would use it when they got on and also use it when they got off," he said.

He said they're also focusing on employees.

"Our drivers and attendants would have masks, their temperatures would be taken before they got on the school bus and they would clean that bus post and pre-trip at least twice, if not multiple times a day," he said. "We're going to do everything we can to make sure it's a safe environment."