Superintendent Nease calls for statewide approach to opening public schools
July 26, 2020 | By Lisa Scagliotti
Photo by Gordon Miller.
In an especially lengthy, candid public letter on Saturday, Harwood Union School District Superintendent Brigid Nease lays out the myriad of challenges, worries and details weighing on school leaders as they map out how to reopen schools in five weeks.
Her piece comes two days after the district released its plan to reopen Aug. 31 with students attending school in person one day per week and teachers spending two days per week in school.
The approach is more conservative than some other districts that are planning for more in-person instruction time. But every hybrid plan comes with concerns for navigating the split schedule that poses child care challenges for teachers and families. Staffing issues abound as well as teachers consider the risks of returning to work.
Nease shares that state education officials polled district superintendents just last week -- on July 22 -- asking if they would support an executive order that pushes back the start of school to after Labor Day. And “out of 49 superintendents responding only 6 said no. Why? Because I am pretty certain that there is not a superintendent in this state that knows with certainty that they can staff their school,” Nease wrote.
She calls for state government working with the Vermont teachers’ union to map out a strategy for all of Vermont’s districts rather than leaving it to districts to pave their own way:
“... the BIG elephant in the room is unveiled. School districts across the state all have published plans that they cannot guarantee they can staff, and even if by some miracle one can, it is highly unlikely they will be able to sustain it. Childcare for all families AND school employees is a huge problem that crosses many district geographical boundaries. This is a significant statewide problem in need of a significant statewide solution made by those that have the authority to do so, at the top of the food chain, not individual community administrators and local school boards. This one superintendent respectfully recommends that the only way out is through, by having the Scott administration, the AOE, and the VTNEA take this bull by the horns and lean into it.”