Harwood schools to finish the year in person 4 days a week
April 9, 2021 | By Lisa Scagliotti Editor’s note: This story has been updated.
Following the April vacation week later this month, students and teachers across the Harwood Unified Union School District will return to a hybrid schedule attending in person four days a week for the remainder of the school year.
That was the announcement Friday afternoon from Superintendent Brigid Nease who touted the updated schedule as the closest the district can get to normal this year with an eye toward all in-person instruction when the new school year begins in the fall.
“After much careful study, the admin team concluded that the best way to end the school year well, in order to start the new school year strong, taking into consideration the needs of all students and staff, was to move to a 4-1 model on April 26th, for all K-12 grades currently attending the Hybrid Model,” Nease wrote in a detailed memo to the school community.
The move will mean no significant change for students in the district’s K-6 grades who already are attending school four days in person with one remote day.
It will be a big shift, however, for the older students in grades 7-12 who presently attend in person just two days a week. Classes are split with half attending Monday-Tuesday and half in school Thursday-Friday. Three days a week are remote for those students now with just one of those days being “synchronous” where students and teachers meet via video conferences.
“I want to fully acknowledge that there are differing opinions among students, staff, and parents as to whether we should change our student schedules at all at this late date in the school year,” Nease said in her memo. Adding in more on-site days will be healthier for students, she said, and it will end this year better prepared to return to the classrooms full time in the fall.
“Our students need to be back in school and with each other as a whole group. We need to observe and evaluate the academic, social, and emotional well-being of all our students, and the toll that this pandemic year has taken.”
Going forward for the seven weeks remaining following the April 19-23 break, all K-12 students will attend in person every day except for Wednesdays which will remain a remote learning day, Nease said. The last day of school is scheduled to be June 11 with Harwood Union High School graduation on June 12.
The district will continue to conduct its remote academy unchanged for the remainder of the school year, Nease noted. That is a special program established due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year where some families preferred to have their students learning entirely from home. Figures administrators shared with the school board back in October listed 134 students choosing all-remote learning for this school year (90 in prek-6; 22 in 7-8; 22 in 9-12)
The updated plan for the district incorporates revised guidance from the Vermont Agency of Education released on Thursday.
Some of the new elements in the update from state include relaxing distancing requirements for students in grades 7-12 from six feet to three feet. That provision has been a key stumbling block to having older students attend more days in person so far this school year.
The guidance on health screenings has changed with a shift to asking families to do them before sending students to school. Nease did not say if or when that change might be incorporated into the routines at the Harwood district’s seven campuses.
The new state rules also encourage outdoor learning and now allow for students to mix in different groups for classroom settings.
Masks still are required and distancing for the older grades remains six feet in cafeterias.
Overall, the message from Education Secretary Dan French and Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine is for schools to resume as many aspects of their routines as normally as is safely possible.
“It is important that we endeavor to provide as much in-person instruction as we safely can before the end of the school year. It will be difficult to address the impact of this emergency on our students until we restore the regular routines and daily contact that come with in-person instruction,” they write at the start of the new document.
Reconnecting over the summer
Since January, Gov. Phil Scott, public health, mental health and education officials have been stressing the goal of returning Vermont students to as close to a “normal” in-person routine before this school year ends as long as the coronavirus circumstances would allow that to happen safely. Limited contact and connections, especially among middle- and high school students during stretches of remote learning, have educators, mental health providers, pediatricians and parents concerned for adolescents’ and teens’ social and emotional well-being along with academic progress.
That concern motivated local parents of seventh- and eighth-graders at Crossett Brook Middle School last month to organize social activities for students on their remote learning days. Groups of youngsters have gathered for field games in local parks and this week added in a day of spring cleanup in two Waterbury cemeteries. Through some quick fundraising, the Crossett Brook PTO organizers have also managed to motivate students to take part by offering gift cards and cash prizes from drawings.
Helping students reconnect and readjust to spending time together and even catch up on some academics are reasons behind an announcement Friday from Gov. Scott and Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders regarding funding from the American Recovery Plan headed to the state to address impacts of the pandemic, in particular funding for youth programs this summer.
“We have got to make these programs affordable or free. My own preference will be actually making them free,” Sanders said, joining Scott in the Friday press briefing. “Every family in the state of Vermont, regardless of their income, should know that come this summer, there’s going to be really great programs available for their kids.”
Deputy Education Secretary Heather Bouchey announced that a new website has been created through the Vermont Afterschool organization to collect information on the programs as they are added. The state Agency of Education will also work with school districts, Bouchey said, to offer grants for school-based summer programming aimed to make up for the chaotic school year. The goal is for programs to include catching up on learning and more. “We want every child and every adolescent to have access to something fun and engaging this summer, whether that is a full-time parks and recreation or camp experience, a summer internship, or a pre-apprenticeship for our older youth,” she said.
Stay tuned for more local options as Nease said the HUUSD district is designing “comprehensive enrichment and credit recovery summer plans for all students who wish to participate.”
The federal funding will also be available to existing summer youth programs to expand their offerings.
Survey backs up decision
Nease in her memo said that Harwood administrators relied in part on input from a short survey of parents and guardians of K-12 students sent out midweek. It asked parents to indicate the grade and school their student attends and to fill out one survey per student K-12. It contained one question: “As parents/guardians, do you feel that HUUSD student hybrid schedules should change in grades K-12 to include more in-person days after April break through June for the last 7 weeks of school?” followed by, “Why or why not?” (The question excluded the remote academy students.)
In her memo, Nease shares the results of the survey which received responses from parents of 1,086 students or about 67% of the district’s total student enrollment. Overall, 68% favored more in-person school. Parents of the youngest students -- who already attend in person four days per week -- had the strongest support. Between 72 and 83% of K-4 parents said yes to more in-person instruction, presumably meaning five days.
Parents of fifth and sixth graders were in favor 56% and 62% respectively; the support was 72% among grade 7-8 parents.
Parents of high schoolers overall were 58% in favor of more classroom time. It was parents of seniors, however, who were the only group with a majority -- 54% -- against more in-person school.
Nease acknowledged that opinions vary. “None of the decisions we have made through this pandemic have met the exact needs of all students and families, and we understand that this decision is no different,” Nease wrote. “We truly believe this is the very best that we can do while still managing many of the same restrictions and safety protocols still in place.”
Keeping Wednesdays open
It’s not that administrators didn’t entertain five in-person days for the end-of-year schedule. Nease explains in great detail the various factors that led educators to keep Wednesdays a remote day for all grade levels.
One reason is what led to the remote-Wednesday design initially -- having everyone remain in practice with that format in case schools needed to pivot to an all-remote schedule due to changing COVID-19 circumstances.
While school teachers and staff in March received the COVID-19 vaccine and are now protected against the virus, students are not yet vaccinated. Those 16 and older will be eligible to register for a vaccination appointment starting April 19 but they likely won’t receive their shots until May or June. The COVID-19 vaccines so far have not been approved for youngsters under age 16. There have been national reports this week that vaccine manufacturers are seeing success in trials with adolescents ages 12-16 and they continue working on vaccine development for children six weeks through 11. Dr. Levine has expressed optimism that vaccinations for younger students may be possible later this year.
Meanwhile, state and local school officials are encouraged by the trends that show little spread of the virus in schools so far this school year. “From August through March, HUUSD has had 27 total positive cases in students and staff with 11 of them in school during their infectious period,” Nease wrote. “We total about 2,010 staff and students.”
None of the district’s schools have had to shift to remote learning for more than a few days while contact tracing and testing was conducted as cases emerged. None of the cases resulted in an outbreak or significant spread.
Beyond being ready to pivot due to COVID-19, Nease suggests that some students appreciate the off-site Wednesday as a break from wearing a mask all day and a chance to sleep in. She also lists 13 reasons outlining the intertwined alterations to schedules and routines in place that would need to be changed if Wednesdays were in-person for the rest of the year.
State guidance will determine events
At the start of this week, Gov. Phil Scott and his cabinet shared the state’s reopening strategy called the Vermont Forward Plan that charts a course to reopen most sectors of the economy and communities between now and Independence Day. That news was accompanied, however, with urging particularly for those not vaccinated yet to continue to adhere to the public health guidance to prevent the spread of the virus, especially given the presence of several more highly contagious variants detected in sampling in Vermont.
The new state education guidance released Thursday directs schools to follow various other specific state protocols on gatherings and events that stress distancing, using outdoor spaces, mask-wearing, etc. It doesn’t prohibit specific events, however.
When asked whether end-of-school-year events and activities might be held in person, Nease said district administrators will look to the state guidance as they make decisions. “We are already headed in that direction,” she said.
Nease said she expects to discuss the revised hybrid learning plan at next week's HUUSD School Board meeting. The board meets on Wednesday, April 14, at 6 p.m. via Zoom and available to view on Mad River TV and YouTube. Links to view are on the HUUSD.org board page.