Contributed Photo
Qualina Cooper and sons Jayvyn and Dakarai. Jayvyn, who has autism, lasted only 10 minutes on remote classes.
New Haven schools will reopen as soon as next Monday for a maximum of 125 students with autism and other severe disabilities.
The New Haven Public Schools’ Board of Education meeting made that decision Monday evening in a 6 – 1 vote. Up to this point, New Haven had planned to start all in-person classes, including special education, after ten weeks of virtual classes.
Students with autism and other special needs, as well as English learners, have had a particularly challenging time with remote school in both New Haven and nationwide.
Monday night’s vote followed a presentation by the administration on the safety measures they have implemented so far in New Haven schools.
The proposal from the administration focuses on specialized classrooms for special needs students in 11 schools. Only three to five students would be in each classroom at a time. Half of the students will attend half-day classes on Monday and Tuesday; the other half will attend on Thursday and Friday, similar to the hybrid of in-person and remote learning proposed by the district.
The decision does not affect the rest of the district’s 20,500 students, who are learning remotely for the first ten weeks of the school year in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
There are around 3,400 students with disabilities in the district and 35 specialized classrooms. The district is focusing this latest move on the students whose cognitive disabilities are so severe that they cannot learn over a computer, such as students who are nonverbal or have limited verbal abilities.
The classes will take place at the following schools: Barack Obama, Bishop Woods, Brennan Rogers, Clinton Avenue, Celentano, Clemente, Fair Haven, Hillhouse, Lincoln Bassett, West Rock, Wilbur Cross.
Typhanie Jackson, who runs the special education department for the district, said that she hopes that the district will be able to reopen for more special ed students after this pilot.
Jackson said that teachers are volunteering for the assignment. She has already spoken with the unions representing the staff who would be involved, she said.
Board member and pediatrician Tamiko Jackson-McArthur asked for more information about how the teachers and paraprofessionals in the classrooms will be protected.
“If a child is [Covid] positive, their exposure is a lot greater because of their hands-on, close interaction with students who have these challenges and disabilities,” Jackson-McArthur said.
She also asked for a detailed checklist focused on the readiness of each of the 11 schools.
“If something happens, we know we’ve dotted our ‘i’s and crossed our ‘t’s,” Jackson-McArthur said.
Jackson-McArthur and a few other members of the Board of Education have insisted that they see evidence that school buildings are as safe as possible before they start bringing students back into in-person classes during the pandemi.
The demand aligns with protests against reopening schools if the safety of those within school buildings cannot be guaranteed. The majority of teachers have expressed significant concerns about air flow within schools, students who refuse to wear masks and other potential problems with school reopening, according to a survey by the teachers union.
Typhanie Jackson said she has toured each of the 11 schools that will open and has checked that they have all the necessary personal protective equipment. She said that the district is providing more intensive equipment for these teaching professionals than they have planned for other teachers, including gowns and N95s. They are also providing a variety of mask types for students based on what they will be able to tolerate on their faces.
Superintendent Iline Tracey added that around half of the 11 schools have MERV-13 air filters capable of stopping Covid-19 particles. The others have systems set up to increase air flow as much as possible. Tracey said that one of the only pieces of building readiness missing in some schools are signs about maintaining social distancing.
“In these schools, I will make sure these signs are in place, even if I have to go help myself,” Tracey said.
Board member Darnell Goldson cast the one dissenting vote Monday night. He pushed for a formal committee of union leaders that would have input on any decision to bring more students into the schools. This was a request put forward to him by members of the teachers union, he said.
“I talk to security, teachers and custodians, because I grew up here. I’ve been here for 59 of my 59 years, except when I was in college, and I know a lot of people who contact me and say this thing is not happening that [the administration says] is happening. I would like to feel more comfortable by having those people directly involved in these decisions,” Goldson said.
Board members Jackson-McArthur and Larry Conaway supported Goldson’s motion. The other four voting board members — Yesenia Rivera, Matt Wilcox, Ed Joyner and Justin Elicker — opposed the motion; they said Tracey has been meeting with union leaders already on these decisions, per the board’s request.
Conaway and Jackson-McArthur supported the final vote to allow special education students back into school buildings. That vote included allowing staggered meetings as well state and federally required evaluations of what Special Education students need.
The board Monday night also discussed the possibility of reopening a few classrooms for the most vulnerable English-language learners, primarily refugees and newcomers who have had limited or interrupted formal education.
Board members decided that they did not yet have enough information, like how many students would enter which buildings, to vote.
Qualina Cooper’s son Jayvyn attends Brennan-Rogers Magnet School, one of the schools slated to reopen come Monday. Jayvyn has autism and has struggled to understand why he needs to sit in front of a computer for his virtual classes. Cooper reported that he only lasts 10 minutes in remote school.
However, Jayvyn is in seventh grade and the district is only planning to bring back kindergarten through fourth graders at Brennan-Rogers in this first approved phase. In addition, because Cooper works out of the home, she needs someone to watch him starting at 8 a.m. and until 4 p.m. She has proposed a learning hub for special needs students that would fill that gap.
Will the "volunteers" be paid? Paid extra? Sign waivers releasing City from liability if they get sick?
Did the union just rubber stamp this? How is it safe? And BOE members had questions put passed it anyway?!?!?!? WTF?!?!? Just when I think this Board has got some sense and courage; they do this .
Gov Lamont, shamefully, is putting pressure on NH to go back to school; mentioning NH by name twice in his press conference, after saying the decision was to made locally. So Why must NH do what others are doing? If so, why have local boards? This gov is trying to undermine local control. He must be stopped.
The supposed "volunteers" are undermining their fellow teachers. Please print their names.
When the dying starts; will the public be satisfied. How many have to die?