One day in-person hailed a ‘banner opening’ as school year starts
September 12, 2020 | By Lisa ScagliottiAfter weeks of reinventing how schools operate to reopen this week amidst a pandemic, the first day in the Harwood Union Unified School District was declared a “banner opening” as students joined teachers and staff in person for the first time since March.
“Our careful planning really paid off,” Superintendent Brigid Nease reported to the HUUSD School Board at its meeting Wednesday night.
Nease ticked off short lists from principals in each of the district’s schools as they assessed the opening day last Tuesday. “Students were flexible, patient, kind, and wore their masks well,” Nease said.
For the most part, opening day glitches were minor, Nease reported, as families and staff adjusted to many new routines put in place to adhere to public health guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. That included individual health screenings and temperature checks for each student on arrival, everyone wearing masks, new classroom routines to incorporate distancing, and lots of hand-washing.
Students across Vermont returned to K-12 schools on Tuesday. In the Harwood district,
Tuesday was one of two in-person “first days” as half the students in the hybrid return model attend and the other half attended in person on Thursday. All students had remote schooling on Wednesday and Friday.
The district’s plan calls for four days of remote learning this coming week with one day of in-person instruction. Families were also able to choose an all-remote learning option for their students with about 20 percent of the district’s families opting for that arrangement, Nease said.
In Waterbury and Duxbury, school bus ridership both Tuesday and Thursday was extremely low with most buses transporting just a handful of students at most. Bus monitors sat behind drivers, on board to do health screenings as students were picked up. As a result, drop-off lines of parent vehicles at Crossett Brook Middle School and Thatcher Brook Primary School were long.
At Thatcher Brook, many parents drove, parked, and walked to the school building, waiting along the walkways where new white dots painted six feet apart on the ground helped them spread out. Parents and students all wearing masks waited for staff wearing masks, face shields and gloves to take children’s temperatures and ask the screening questions.
As she stood in line Tuesday morning to drop off her kindergartner and second-grader at Thatcher Brook, parent Martine Antell was a little nervous but upbeat. “We’re ready to just do this,” she said. Both of her kids held bouquets of flowers for their teachers that they stopped to buy at a garden stand in Waterbury Center on their way to school.
The traffic snarl lasted about 30 minutes on Stowe Street where Vermont State Trooper Keith Lewia was on hand to help direct buses into the school lot and keep things moving while the parent vehicles inched through the drop-off loop, stopping for screenings curbside before children hopped out onto the sidewalk and waved goodbye.
At Crossett Brook, the long driveway and path to the gym entrance where staff conducted the screenings provided ample room for vehicles to line up. Principal Tom Drake spent time both directing and greeting families as they arrived in vehicles.
Around the school grounds at Crossett Brook, sideless tents with picnic tables dot the landscape. Drake said Thursday that the tents were popular as teachers opted to spend time outdoors with their classes. “The weather helped, as getting outside and taking mask breaks was very helpful,” he said at the end of the day. “Students and staff just seem happy to be back in each other's presence. It’s not ideal, but it is real!”
Next step: Adding in-person days
After this week’s schedule of four days remote and one day in school, the district aims to increase in-person instruction for K-12 to two days in school starting the week of Sept. 21 as long as health guidance doesn’t change.
Nease reminded the school board on Wednesday that plans to have students still split in two groups with each attending two days per week and three days remote is the expectation. The next shift would likely come in mid-October when the state is expected to loosen the guidance regarding distancing among students up to age 10. That would allow full classes for grades K-4 to return with an eye toward four days in person and one day remote, Nease said.
She stressed that classroom sizes would not allow for the students in grades 5-12 to attend more than two days in person given the six-foot distancing requirement.
One constant: Nease said the district will maintain at least one day of remote learning for all in the hybrid model. By keeping teachers and students in that routine at least part of each week, they will be prepared should the district need to shift to more remote learning if public health guidelines demand it as the school year progresses.
“We are being told to expect a surge of the virus by Thanksgiving. We could find ourselves [in remote learning] for a few months,” she said.
Also this week, high school fall sports tryouts and trainings began; middle school practices are scheduled to begin Tuesday, Sept. 15. School district athletic directors, coaches and players across Vermont are awaiting guidance from the state Agency of Education regarding when schools will shift to allow for teams to begin competitions. They are anticipating that move by late September.
Students in, students out
In a preliminary report to the school board, the administration outlined the latest enrollment data for the school district, collected in the first few days of September.
Overall, it showed a net loss of 24 students across the district since June.
That figure is the result of a calculation that saw 50 new students move into the Harwood Union district and 74 leave.
The breakdown of the new students was particularly noteworthy because 40 have moved in from other states and only 10 were from other districts in Vermont. Waitsfield Elementary School reported the most new students from out of state at 15; the Warren School had the second-highest at seven; Thatcher Brook noted six, and Crossett Brook has 4, according to the report.
In the Aug. 31 online question-and-answer session, Nease discussed the enrollment trends a bit and noted that new students have enrolled from many other places. “They’re from California, Oregon, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts -- kind of all over really,” she said.
The anticipated enrollment for opening day was 1,644 students in K-12 compared with 1,668 who were enrolled in June.
Of those who have left the district, 41 left for other schools and 33 left to pursue homeschooling separate from the remote learning option the district is offering this year. The report did not detail which schools the students left. Vermont schools are required to submit enrollment reports to the state each fall reflecting their data as of October 1. Nease said that report would contain more details to understand the changes behind the latest figures.
Board business
Wednesday’s school board meeting also included time for members to sort through their list of goals for the coming year to prioritize particular topics. One priority that emerged included moving ahead with anti-racism training starting with the board itself. The board voted unanimously to pursue anti-racism training for itself as a group, approving a proposal to work with Harold “Hal” Colston as a facilitator.
Colston is a Democratic state representative from Winooski with a long background as an entrepreneur and social justice activist. His resume includes teaching at New England Culinary Institute, founding the nonprofit Good News Garage, and heading SerVermont. He works as a facilitator now with Snelling Center for Government and Burlington’s Peace and Justice Center. The district this summer created an Anti-Racism Committee to address issues of racism across the school system.
Resuming discussions on the district’s plan for preK-through-12 schools was another pressing priority with members stressing the importance of those discussions before it’s time to work on the budget for the 2021-22 school year.
The board also discussed tasks and roles for several existing and new committees to focus on specific areas such as finance, policies, and negotiating labor contracts.
Next meetings
School district leaders will continue their online question-and-answer sessions with the next one scheduled for Sept. 21. Information on how to participate using Zoom or watching on YouTube or Mad River TV is on the district’s website, HUUSD.org.
The next school board meeting is Sept. 23 at 6 p.m. Details on joining that online meeting will be on the board’s webpage on HUUSD.org as well.
