As Sept. 8 nears, school hybrid and remote operation plans come into focus
August 22, 2020 | By Lisa Scagliotti
A crew from Kingsbury in Middlesex excavates behind a wing of Crossett Brook Middle School recently. Principal Tom Drake said a the foundation needed sealing where a crack had formed and was causing moisture to leak into a classroom. Photo by Gordon Miller.
As opening day for the Harwood Union 2020-21 school year inches closer, school officials continue to roll out details for day-to-day operations and revise their plans for how they will gradually return students and teachers to their classrooms.
This past week brought more discussion around specific questions posed by the community in a question-and-answer session; Superintendent Brigid Nease presented an updated “Return to Learn Plan” that now envisions the 4:1 hybrid plan lasting only two weeks; and Friday’s Community Bulletin lays out school bus routes using a new morning bus routine to allow for checking every student’s temperature as they board the bus.
Recordings of the Q&A sessions and Harwood Union School Board meetings are all available for viewing online on the district’s YouTube page or on Mad River TV. The latest communications contain links to the documents spelling out the details. All are found on the district’s website HUUSD.org.
The most significant changes announced this week were outlined in the plan Nease shared that responds to recent advice from state education leaders who are urging districts to conduct as much instruction in person as possible as soon as possible within public health guidelines given the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Harwood district’s plan so far has called for a hybrid plan with students attending school in person one day per week and learning remotely the other four weekdays. Families also have a choice to keep their students home completely to learn remotely full-time to start. More on that below.
But the latest plan now looks for the Harwood district’s schools to move to two days in person as soon as the third week of school, starting Sept. 21. “All students in grades K-12 will attend in person/on site two days each week and remote/off site three days each week,” the plan states.
The idea would still be for classes to be divided into two groups so that only half the students were in school at any given time. That will allow for distancing in classrooms, on buses, etc. In the opening model, students attend in person either Tuesday or Thursday. Teachers would be in school two days per week.
By week three, students would still be divided into two groups, but each group would attend in person either Monday-Tuesday or Thursday-Friday with Wednesday being a remote day for all. Teachers would be on site four days per week under this arrangement.
That configuration would continue until the state changes the overall guidance for school operations to what it refers to as “Phase III” which is described as close to “normal” as possible given public health distancing guidelines. That phase would encourage schools to aim for full-time in-person learning for as many students as possible, particularly the youngest students.
All schools are opening with the state’s directive to use “Phase II” hybrid models. “Phase I” refers to schools in complete remote operations with school buildings closed as they were in the spring when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
K-4 students possibly in school 4 days by mid-October
The latest plan anticipates the state moving to Phase III by the sixth week of the school year, starting the week of Oct. 12.
The Harwood Union district’s plan at that point would vary based on grade levels. Students in grades K-4 would attend school as full classes in person four days a week with Wednesday still a remote day. The key factor that would allow that arrangement, the plan says, would be relaxed state guidance to allow for distancing among young children to be 3-6 feet rather than 6 feet as it is now for all students.
In Phase III, older students in grades 5-12 would still attend two days in person, three days remote, in divided class groups.
However, the plan says school leaders are “exploring the feasibility” of shifting the arrangement for the older grades to vary by week. The plan describes that possible scenario this way: “In week 1, Group A would be in person 3 days and remote 2 days while Group B would be in person 2 days and remote 3 days. Then in week 2 they would flip.”
Plans for the district’s youngest students in preschool will be outlined in a separate plan that’s still being developed.
Staffing challenges, remote learning ‘academy’
Throughout all of the planning to open schools Sept. 8, administrators are wrestling with staffing questions as teachers and staff submit requests for leaves of absence. Nease this week said so far, 21 teachers and 11 support staff have requested leaves and two resignations have been received.
The district also continues to advertise for substitute teachers as its list has dwindled to just 21 compared to about 80 before the pandemic.
Some juggling could occur to assign teachers who do not want to teach in person to continue to teach the students who opt for remote-only learning.
Nease said based on parent surveys, about 23 percent of the district’s families are requesting remote-only learning for their students. That is similar to the statewide average of 22 percent, Nease said.
Planning for teaching the all-remote enrollment is somewhat complicated by incomplete surveys -- not all families have responded, Nease said.
What’s coming together, however, would be what’s being dubbed the “HUUSD Online Academy” where district teachers exclusively teach online for those students in grades K-8 who opt to learn from home exclusively.
Meanwhile, planning for all-remote learning for high school students is more complicated. The Return to Learn Plan describes how that likely will involve a combination of online instruction from Harwood teachers and other online high-school level programs such as those offered through the Vermont Virtual Learning Cooperative, an online educational instruction institution that predates COVID-19.
Nease sums up the latest report with this: “Ideally, we will meet the needs of all of our students in some way, somehow.”
School administrators emphasized at Wednesday’s board meeting that the careful planning to gradually increase in-person learning this year is intentional.
Waitsfield Principal Kaiya Korb said it all comes down to caution. “We need to know that we can do it well before we commit to five days a week because we want to be there all year,” she said. “We’ve got to not start running the marathon before we at least know we can run the 5K.”
Board Chair Caitlin Hollister said she, like many parents, is eager to see students in school more days, but she appreciates the approach administrators are taking. “It’s hard to be confident with so many uncertainties,” Hollister said. “But I do feel good about where these plans are as a parent and board member.”
Board decisions, next meetings
The School Board acted on several items this week. It approved a request from administrators to carry over unused 2020 summer vacation days into next year.
It also delayed discussion about merging the seventh and eighth grade classes. The merger has been a priority topic for more than a year and the board this spring envisioned a process starting in September to work through the details so that budget discussions for 2021 would reflect a merger. The board agreed Wednesday to revisit the plan for diving into merger discussions after its retreat meeting scheduled for next week.
The board meets Wednesday, Aug. 26, for its retreat assisted by a facilitator from the Vermont School Boards Association. From 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., the board will meet in closed session for a training session. The second two hours, 6:30-8:30 p.m. will be a public meeting to focus on board goals for the coming year. The next regular board meeting is Sept. 9, at 6 p.m.
The next Q&A sessions with Nease and district administrators including principals are scheduled for Aug. 31 and Sept. 14 at 6:30 p.m. Details on how to watch online via Zoom, Youtube or Mad River TV are on the school district’s website.