Courtney Luciana Photo
Superintendent Tracey at Riverside Academy graduation.
• City schools pivot to governor’s call for full fall reopening.
• Now where will we find all those face masks?
This is the latest guidance from the state for local school districts during the Covid-19 pandemic, Gov. Ned Lamont announced on Thursday.
“I was not expecting five days a week, all day with all the students,” said New Haven Public Schools Superintendent Iline Tracey after the announcement. “But at least when it comes to transportation, that alleviates some of our concerns.”
Tracey’s “Tiger Team” has been working on plans that cover instruction, operation, student wellness and more as the Covid-19 pandemic continues. Tracey decided to start planning before getting official guidance from the state so teachers could help plan before their summers start.
She knew the plan would need tweaking. But Thursday’s news presented a whole set of new questions: Which classrooms have room for students to spread out? Will schools need to provide masks for students? How many parents will simply opt not to send their child in?
“We’ll make it work,” Tracey vowed.
Contingent On Virus (And People) Behavior
State of Connecticut
The state plan to reopen is based on current data that shows an ongoing decline in new Covid-19 cases in the state, said Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona.
Cardona pointed to the relatively slow spread of the virus in Connecticut compared to many other states that have reopened their economies. (The total death tolls in New Haven, Hartford and Fairfield County over the course of the pandemic are still among the highest per capita in the country.)
If the spread of Covid-19 picks up again, districts will be asked to switch to partial in-person — “hybrid” — or fully remote learning, Cardona said. The state plans to finalize the number of cases that would trigger those partial or complete shutdowns and publish them at a later date.
In other words, Connecticut residents must continue to wear masks and social distance for the next few months for schools to reopen fully in the fall, Cardona said.
Some parents may not feel comfortable sending their children back to school yet. Cardona said that districts should give those families opportunities to continue remote learning.
The number of families who take this route in the fall could be quite high, according to a survey NHPS conducted recently.
Tracey said that nearly half of the 9,800 parents responding to the survey said that they would prefer to keep their children home in the fall.
“If we have 4,000 or 5,000 families stay home, we may be able to practice proper social distancing. But will unions allow teachers to teach double time?” Tracey said.
She said that she will send out another survey to gauge parent plans now that the governor has declared it safe to send children to school.
Safety Measures
New information about Covid-19 and how it spreads has convinced the state that some safety measures are less important than previously thought.
Temperature checks and Covid-19 testing are among these strategies, Cardona said. A child might get sent home because a thermometer implies that they have a fever, when they have just been waiting outside in the heat for the temperature check. Or a student might be exposed to the virus a day after being swabbed for the disease and become Covid-positive before the initial results come back.
Instead, face masks, social distancing and student cohorts are the key strategies the state is encouraging school districts to take.
Students and staff would cover their noses and mouths at all times inside the building. Desks would be spaced as far apart as classrooms would allow. Gyms and auditoriums may need to be converted into learning space to help. Students would interact with only one relatively small group of peers as much as possible.
These social distancing measures could be difficult for pre-kindergarten classes, Tracey said. Preschoolers often sit in groups at tables rather than at desks. Tracey said that the district is considering whether to purchase new furniture.
Similarly, space will likely be a constraint in the district’s most populated schools. Fair Haven School, Conte West Hills Magnet School and Wilbur Cross High School are already at capacity, Tracey said.
“At Cross, when students transition between classes, it’s like on Broadway,” Tracey said.
Bus capacity will not be as much of an issue as NHPS administrators had anticipated. Previous guidance suggested that the state would require buses to halve or more than halve the number of students allowed on at any one time.
Cardona said that the state is hoping districts will consider the plan and respond within the next month about what kind of financial gaps districts need to close to make reopening happen.
At the moment, Tracey sees shortages of custodial staff and face masks as key challenges NHPS would face during reopening. Because it would be important for schools, particularly school bathrooms, to be cleaned regularly, schools would need more custodians working, she said.
The district would encourage families to provide students with face masks from home, but schools would need extras just in case a student arrives without one, Tracey said. Similarly, classrooms would need extra hand sanitizer.
From her experience at graduations this year, Tracey expects students to be very happy to be back in schools. She recalled students hugging her despite her requests to practice social distancing.
“Students can’t wait to see their teachers. It’s a long time to be away from social interaction,” Tracey said.
This is good news for many or most, but I wonder what kind of plan will be put in place for the many families with a high-risk member - including the child. Will they be on their own and have to pull the child out and homeschool, be assigned a dedicated online teacher and curriculum, be able to view live lessons remotely or be given the mostly-asynchronous remote learning plan as this past Spring? I hope these families needs are also being considered.