HUUSD Board resists administration’s hybrid learning model; takes charge of reopening process

August 1  |  By Hadley Laskowski, The Valley Reporter

Editor’s Note: Thanks to our friends at The Valley Reporter for sharing Hadley Laskowski’s report from the Wednesday online special HUUSD School Board meeting. The board plans additional meetings on reopening as it gets more involved in this process with the next meeting expected on Wednesday.

The school board is taking over back-to-school planning. At a special board meeting on July 29, the Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) Board met to discuss the administration’s newly released back-to-school plan, which involves four days of remote learning and one day of in-person learning for all students in the district. While some board members spoke in favor of this conservative and cautious 4-1 approach, the majority of board members spoke against the model.

Board members’ disdain for the 4-1 plan can be summarized in five points: The plan, which involves a majority of remote learning days, won’t work for young children, won’t work for working parents, will create learning inequities, is unnecessary for a district with such a low case count and actually increases exposure risk by having students come together in school for one day a week.

Regarding the effectiveness of remote learning for young kids, many board members spoke to their own challenges as parents with remote learning. “The remote learning, the way it was in the spring, doesn’t work. Not for my kids,” said Michael Frank of Waterbury. 

“Trying to live in a virtual world with an 8-year-old is darn near impossible,” said Duxbury board member Alec Adams after advocating that kindergarteners through fourth-graders should be in school with their peers. 

“Remote learning did not work out for my students. I have a kindergartener,” said Kelley Hackett of Waterbury.

Alex Thomsen, also of Waterbury, emphasized the science when making her case that young children should be in school. “I’m both a working mom and a scientist. I feel like we have not been using science consistently as a guidepost in our decision-making. The science has been very clear that transmission rates with the littles is very low. To not put our K through 4 in a building more than one day a week is just not responsible of us.”

Parents who spoke up at the meeting also rebelled against remote learning for young children. Jill Rickard, a parent of a rising kindergartener in Waitsfield, asked, “How will remote learning for early childhood be anything more than nothing? There’s no way that children in kindergarten, in first grade and second grade, can pay attention to a screen for more than five minutes. Really, your 4 to 1 model is 1. There is no 4.”

Other board members emphasized the toll this highly remote-based model would have on working parents. “I know a nurse, an essential worker and parent, who doesn’t know how she’s going to manage to go back to work,” said Moretown board member Kristen Rogers. 

Along the same vein, Warren representative Rosemarie White said, “While we are not required to provide child care for students, society has become such that we have two working parents, and they must rely upon school so they can work. We need to find a way to help those families so they can go back to work and pay their bills.” 

Equity 

Equity was another issue on board members’ minds when contemplating the administration’s 4-1 model. “When we look at the 4-1 model, it creates an enormous inequity between the haves and have nots,” said Theresa Membrino of Fayston. 

Some potential avenues for inequity include the hiring of supplemental tutors, the creation of homeschooling pods and the extra attention that some well-to-do families will provide to their own children and not others. “We need to get them back into the building together, there are going to be issues with equity,” said Waitsfield board member Christine Sullivan.

In addition to equity, both board members and parents were concerned about the increased health risks involved with this specific model. Frank pointed out that when students are learning remotely four days a week, “a lot of kids are going to be mixing outside.” 

Students will not stay isolated in their bedrooms all day when they are learning remotely; they will play with other kids. Danny Ruggles, a parent of two elementary school students in Moretown, warned that less in-person days will result in more exposure when the students return for their one day in class a week. “It’s such a relief to hear the board pushing back on this plan,” he added.

Rickard, parent of the rising kindergartener, said that parents were already forming learning pods with no health regulations. “There is no 3 to 6 feet to talk about. There are no mask regulations to talk about. This is just going to lead to worse health outcomes than opening schools. Vermont has worked so hard following the guidelines. With our levels of COVID, if we can’t reopen, who can?”

Finally, a key pillar in the board’s rejection of the 4-1 model has to do with risk. Board members questioned why the HUUSD should take such a cautious approach when neighboring school districts with far more active coronavirus cases are opening for five days a week in-person learning. “I’m looking to our neighbors and wondering why our model is such an outlier. It doesn’t feel good to be an outlier in less education to our kids,” said Thomsen.

 Preserve teacher health

Superintendent Brigid Nease defended the administration’s model as a way to preserve teacher health. “If we don’t have licensed high quality teachers in school to teach them (students), that will be untenable for families and not good for students,” said Nease. “The only way you can be student-focused is by stabilizing your workforce. These teachers are highly qualified. They have very specific licenses to teach. Losing any one of those teachers will affect us all greatly.”

Ultimately, the board decided it will take a more active stance in designing the reopening plan. In an informal vote that asked board members if they would rather take an active stance on reworking the model or leave it to the administration, five board members voted to take an active stance, three board members voted to let the administration stay in charge and the rest abstained. 

To summarize the board’s sentiments, Membrino said: “This is the most important thing any of us will do on a board. We are the approvers of the plan. We should be very involved.”

Two educators, two opinions sum up dilemma

By Lisa Scagliotti

During the public comment period at the end of Wednesday’s HUUSD School Board meeting, two Waterbury educators spoke, sharing divergent views that illustrate the ongoing dilemma with which teachers, administrators and parents are conflicted. 

Thatcher Brook Primary School kindergarten teacher Andrew Emrich urged the board to “take a slow opening approach for all grade levels” returning to school. Citing evolving scientific information and uncertainty about COVID-19, he said he prefers starting the year completely remote. If there must be in-person days, Emrich said he supports the proposal to start with one day per week.

“All teachers want to be back in the classroom with our students but only when that can be done safely for everyone in the building,” he said. “We’re scared -- for the safety of our students, safety of our colleagues, the safety of our families.”

Emrich said for the first time, he feels unable to tell families that their children will be safe in school. “The amount of pressure that puts on our shoulders is crippling,” he said. 

Waterbury resident Erin Hurley teaches middle school in the Mount Mansfield Union School District and is a parent of a preschooler and a first grader. She said she understands the anxiety Emrich expressed. “But I’m also thinking about the unintended consequences of my students being out of school,” she said.

Hurley, who holds a masters degree in public health and formerly worked at the Centers for Disease Control, urged the board to have the district prepare a plan for full-time in-person instruction - particularly for the youngest students - even if it happens gradually. “If we don't make a model to go back in school five days a week, then it will never happen. We owe it to our students to envision that as a possibility for next year,” she said. 

Hurley pointed to schools in Europe and elsewhere that are having success with in-person learning after reopening schools. “I truly believe we can get back to school safely,” she said. “This is our chance.”