Return to classrooms pushed back
Superintendent now expects all students to be back in their buildings by Nov. 9
The Kingston school district has delayed the return of students to classrooms, but when it does happen, those in all grades — not just K-4 — are expected to back in their buildings.
District Superintendent Paul Padalino announced at a Board of Education meeting Wednesday evening that the most recent plan — to have elementary schoolers back in classrooms on Oct. 13 while continuing online-only education indefinitely for middle and high school students — has been scrapped because expected funding cuts would make implementation impossible.
“Recent uncertainty over aid to schools has forced us to reconsider the viability of this plan,” Padalino said. “We do
not believe we can sustain this model in the event of a reduction in aid to schools, which has been estimated at 20 percent. … This would be more than $14 million to the Kingston city school district.”
A date for the return of students to their schools has not been set, but Padalino said he expects it will be in late October or early Novem
ber.
“I would be comfortable saying right now that our goal is to have our elementary school students back in school on the 26th of October and our secondary (middle and high school) students on the 9th of November,” he said.
Instruction for all students has been given online since schools across the state shut down in late March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But even when Kingston students return to class
rooms, they still will take some classes online from their homes.
District officials say that under the plan now being developed, elementary schoolers would be in their buildings either on alternate days, for the entire school day, or every day for half a day; and the remainder of their instruction would be given online. Middle schoolers and high schoolers, meanwhile, would spend full days in school on alternate days and take classes online the other days.
“The only way ... to expand the number of students who come to school would be to put in a rotating schedule,” Padalino said. “Certain students would come to school one day, and … other students would stay home and be remote that day; and then reverse that as we go through a rotational model.”
All students are to be in their regular schools when classroom instruction resumes. At one point, Kingston was planning to spread students from the district’s
seven elementary schools across all 10 buildings in the district.
Padalino said all scheduling and transportation issues, including those pertaining to social distancing, must be resolved before students can return.
“We have 137 buses on the road every morning and every [afternoon], and we transport more 5,000 students every year,” he said. “So now we have to do that with the same number of buses, transporting the same number of students, but with only a third of the capacity. So there are a lot of logistics around planning that. …
“There’s a lot of details that we need to consider during this whole process that need to be thought through beyond the educational program,” he said.
Padalino said district officials and teachers are working on logistics and that public information sessions for parents will be held soon.