The new rules of school
Santo Niño Regional Catholic School, one of a few Santa Fe campuses with in-person instruction, offers glimpse of what return to classrooms with pandemic guidelines, protocols in place looks like
Robin Chavez can handle mask-wearing for only so long.
That’s when her face shield comes in handy.
The principal of Santo Niño Regional Catholic School, one of only a handful of schools in Santa Fe to start the 2020-21 school year with in-person instruction, admits wearing a mask regularly for up to 10 hours a day while ensuring her campus operates smoothly can sometimes be too much to bear.
So, in those moments when it’s just her and the worries about the coronavirus pandemic, Chavez opts for the plastic shield with a blue headband so she can breathe more easily. But she has a mask ready at all times.
“If I’m going to be in close proximity to anybody, and especially if I’m going to be around children closer than 6 feet, I put the mask on with the shield,” Chavez said. “If I can get away with wearing just the shield, I’m a pretty happy girl.”
In case you’re wondering, this is what in-person education during a pandemic looks like: socially distant classroom settings, constant sanitization, staggered arrivals and departures, face shields and/or masks.
And to varying degrees, it might be what schools all over New Mexico will look like when they begin mask-to-mask instruction.
Santo Niño, where classes started late last month, chose to begin the year under what it calls a “community choice” model in which students can either attend class or take part online. Of the school’s 135 students, 35 are using the virtual option. The remainder attend class at the College Avenue campus as they did before the pandemic.
But, of course, nothing is really the same since COVID-19 came to town.
For the 12 Santo Niño students in each classroom, they are learning what 6 feet looks like from the spacing of their desks. To keep all students from interacting with one another, they have been placed in “cohorts” according to grade. Each cohort stays within one of the school’s four buildings, and access is restricted to those hallways and the designated open spaces outdoors.
Chavez acknowledged the changes stemming from the novel coronavirus have resulted in a significant enrollment hit; prior to the pandemic, the school was expected to have 200 students this year. She attributes the shift to two factors: Santo Niño did not receive as many preschool students this year, and some parents elected to home-school their children.
For families who chose the in-person learning option, many seem satisfied so far with the guidelines and protocols Santo Niño instituted.
Christine Lopez, the parent of a fifth grade girl and also the receptionist at the school, said she had no issue with sending her child into the classroom.
“It was necessary for her to be there in class with a teacher,” Lopez said. “We’re not teachers, and it was difficult for us to teach her things [when the school closed in the spring]. She needs to be in a classroom setting. You’ll always be concerned, but we had to think about her whole self and not just of her physical health.”
Chavez said the school’s safety guidelines and protocols were created in a process that began well before the 2019-20 school year ended.
“Before they left for spring break, they were already starting formulating” a plan, Chavez said. “Throughout the summer, we’ve been meeting once a week on Zoom. Of course, I met with the finance team to talk about the budgeting that was going to need to happen.”
From those talks emerged a plan with the following basic tenets:
◆ Students, teachers and staff must wear masks at all times, except for in designated areas outside where they remain isolated.
◆ Everyone is screened for symptoms via temperature check and health checklist before entering the campus, with students arriving alphabetically by last name in 15-minute increments and going directly to their respective classrooms after screening.
◆ Per the public health order’s 25 percent occupancy rule for private schools in New Mexico, no more than 12 students, who are kept 6 feet apart at socially distanced desks, can be in the same classroom.
◆ Students are separated into four cohorts determined by grade (kindergartners and pre-K students in one cohort, first and second graders in another, etc.) and do not interact with other groups.
◆ Classrooms are cleaned and sanitized throughout the day, usually during recess or breaks.
Chavez said the campus’s setup made it easy to separate each cohort into its own building. Breaks and departure schedules for each cohort are staggered to keep students apart.
“Right now, they are doing very little movement throughout the building,” Chavez said. “It’s only during recess time, and we keep them to their own hallways to do that.”
Santo Niño is one of five schools in the city with in-person instruction, whether it’s 100 percent or in a hybrid model. Chavez said that apart from discussions with St. Michael’s High School Principal Sam Govea, no other schools have inquired about Santo Niño’s plan.
“We try to stay on par with each other,” Chavez said, referring to St. Michael’s. “As far as other schools, I think each of our schools are different. Some things that might work well for us might not for another school.”
The rest of the city’s public and private schools are looking at opening their doors to students later in the semester. Santa Fe Public Schools has said it plans to stick with remote learning for at least the first nine weeks of the school year.
Santo Niño was supposed to open Aug. 17, but Chavez pushed it back a week to help with professional development for teachers, as well as to allow families to have an “open house” to see what the school did to ensure the health and safety of students. Chavez and the staff spent a week and a half allowing the parents of each student to meet with teachers and staff to show how a school day would look.
So far, Chavez said, the school has not sent a student home due to health issues. In fact, the only potential incident involved an online student who took a coronavirus test after exposure to a family member who also was tested.
Per school guidelines, should a student or staff member test positive or come in close contact with someone with COVID-19, they would have to stay home until they could provide a release from a physician and test negative for the coronavirus.
Anyone who exhibited COVID-19 symptoms on campus would be sent home and required to get medical clearance before returning, or they would have to be fever free for 72 hours without using fever-reducing medication. In the case of an infected or exposed student, siblings attending the school also would be sent home and required to follow the same instructions.
Chavez said any area where the sick individual had been would be immediately closed and sanitized. Also, the school would call the New Mexico Environment Department’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau and follow its instructions.
“We say, ‘Here’s what happened, here is the contact tracing we’ve done and what you need to know,’ ” Chavez said. “Basically, they tell us what to do next.”
Evelyn Rivera, a first grade teacher, said she is impressed with how well students have handled all the changes and protocols, noting they have led to an oft-uttered phrase on campus: “air hugs.”
“These are first and second graders, and just look at them,” Rivera said. “I think it’s just them learning over the summer to practice social distancing and wearing masks. They are real awesome troopers. Of course, we have little reminders when [a mask] might dip below their noses, but you don’t see a lot of that. They jumped right into it.”
Make no mistake: The classroom setting is very different. Instead of setting up tables for groups of students to sit, as would have been common prior to the pandemic, staff members set up desks in a socially distant fashion. Also, there are classroom cameras to help online students follow the live instruction and to record lessons in case a technological issue occurs.
Nancy Roybal, a second grade teacher, said there are occasional audio problems for the three online students in her class, but those are usually fixed quickly. She also noted occasional problems with logging in due to miscommunication.
Angelica Urioste said her son, a fourth grader attending Santo Niño online, experienced one connectivity issue. She made a call to the school’s IT department, and the problem was fixed quickly.
Urioste added that if virus cases are at an acceptable level by January, she will have no problem bringing her son back to school.
“I feel that, if I was not given the option to work from home, I would have felt 100 percent reassured that he would be safe going back to school right now,” she said.
Chavez said having teachers handle both in-class and online instruction at the same time is difficult, and it is made tougher because an avenue of assistance — parent volunteers — is missing. Previously, parents could help in the office and as classroom assistants, but the state health order has prevented that this year.
“Teachers are definitely doing double duty,” Chavez said. “But I hear them asking, ‘How can we make this better?’ I don’t hear complaints. I feel blessed to be where I am. I wouldn’t want to be at any other school right now.”
Lopez said parents mostly understand and have accepted not being able to serve in the classroom, and if anyone would know, it’s her. She monitors the front door, which is locked, and people can only enter the main office via appointment. She said there was one instance in which a parent tried to enter unannounced, but she turned her away.
“They were a little bit hurt about it because we had an open-door policy,” Lopez said. “I mean, we know you and you know us.”
Chavez said the parents of some online students have already inquired about changing their minds, but they can’t do that until the completion of the first quarter. By then, Chavez hopes the health order will be further relaxed to allow it to happen.
“We might be more stringent [adhering to the health order], but we will never be less,” Chavez said.
It was necessary for her to be there in class with a teacher. We’re not teachers, and it was difficult for us to teach her things [when the school closed in the spring]. She needs to be in a classroom setting. You’ll always be concerned, but we had to think about her whole self and not just of her physical health.” Santo Niño Regional Catholic School parent and receptionist Christine Lopez