Emily Hays Photo
Supt. Iline Tracey, at right, checks conditions at Bishop Woods School in October with Mayor Justin Elicker and Asst. Principal Flo Crisci.
After 10 months at home, New Haven elementary school students are to return to in-person learning four days a week in mid-January.
Superintendent Iline Tracey made that announcement in a letter posted on the Board of Education website on New Year’s Eve.
Starting Jan. 19, all students enrolled in pre‑K through 5th grade will have the option of “hybrid” learning, Tracey announced.
Until now, New Haven’s (and Danbury’s) have been the only school systems in the state not to return to some form of in-person instruction during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under the new plan, pre‑K through third-grade students will attend classes four days a week. They will learn remotely one day (probably Wednesday) while the schools undergo deep cleaning, Tracey clarified in a conversation Thursday evening. Fourth and fifth graders will be in classes in person two days a week.
Two schools, though, will not reopen: West Rock and Quinnipiac. That’s because of an analysis of those schools’ ventilation systems by the city’s building department, Tracey reported.
Tracey plans to speak with parents and teachers from those two schools next week to discuss on plans for students there.
“Specialized special education” students and those enrolled in Fair Haven and Barnard schools’ New Arrival programs will also return.
No decisions have been made about in-person learning for middle- and upper-school students, Tracey said.
Parents will be able to keep their students home to learn remotely if they wish. The school system has previously surveyed parents about their preferences, and plan to work with and update that information, Tracey said.
Teachers will not be able to opt out unless they have been approved in a process that includes a doctor’s recommendation that they have special health risks. Tracey said the schools have hired extra substitute teachers to cover classrooms of students who will remain out during the pandemic.
The superintendent said she made the decision in consultation with the health and building departments. She said she acted based in part on “evidence in other communities and across the world that that particular age group has not been affected.” Click here and here to read more about the consensus that the coronavirus has not spread from elementary school classrooms.
“The science is unsettled,” countered Sarah Miller of New Haven Public School Advocates. She cited reports like this one suggesting Covid-19 upticks may be linked general school reopenings as well as reports of school-related Covid spreads in Ohio, where the governor vowed to prioritize teachers and school staffers to receive vaccinations. Miller also criticized the way NHPS communicated this reopening decision on New Year’s Eve.
Christopher Peak Photo
“It’s time,” Board of Education President Yesenia Rivera (pictured) said Thursday evening of the decision to reopen elementary schools.
“It’s a good idea for the kids to be in the classroom with their teachers and their peers. It’s been a long time since that happened,” she said in an interview. “I realize it’s not a very popular decision at the moment. I feel like it’ll be OK. If it doesn’t seem that way, Dr. Tracey will pull the plug and return to remote.”
The decision should “not have been made without a vote and without public input,” Board of Education member Darnell Goldson argued. He said he disagrees with the hybrid reopening decision without having more information about the system’s readiness. He said he had recent conversations with staff members who have tested positive for Covid-19 without getting administrative feedback about how to proceed.
Tracey noted the board had previously voted to begin a hybrid learning model in the middle of the fall, on Nov. 9, after a ten-week delay to prepare buildings for students’ return. At that point, “it was back in our hands,” Tracey said. The Nov. 9 return was delayed amid a spike in Covid-19 cases.
“I have consulted every board member. We have had discussions with the unions about this. The board is aware. It did not require their vote this time,” Tracey said.
Rivera agreed. “We were supposed to open Nov. 9,” she said, and “there was no need” to conduct a new vote.
Tracey’s letter follows:
This is absolutely ludicrous. Yesterday's positivity rate was 9.14%. The hypocrisy of having teaching return to in-school while the board still meets online says everything you need to know about how the district feels about children's' safety as well as teachers' safety. 2 million children have been diagnosed with COVID and 1 million children since November alone. We're months away from the virus and the district decides now, when our numbers are the highest, to return to in-school teaching. Typical New Haven.