Plans outlined to return Bethlehem elementary students to classroom

Elementary school students in Bethlehem Area School District could be going back to a real classroom four days a week by April 12 under a plan outlined to the school board by the district superintendent Monday night.

Superintendent Joseph Roy said there is a serious need to get students back to in-person learning, and given the changing dynamics of the pandemic, local and national health experts see a path to allow children back in the classroom.

“The driving force for this is students need the routine of school for academic as well as social and emotional well-being. We can’t just ride out the rest of the year like this,” he said during a virtual meeting of the board’s human resource committee.

While the need for in-person learning is evident, Roy said, it can be done safely with guidelines set by health experts at St. Luke’s University Health Network, the Bethlehem Health Bureau, the state Health Department and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Allowing a safe return to class relies on several factors, which Roy said include distancing students 3-6 feet apart, the use of masks, having vaccinated teachers and staff, and that children under 10 are less likely than other people to contract or spread the virus.

Another key factor is that COVID-19 cases in both Lehigh and Northampton counties have reached what Roy said is a plateau, with indications that infections are on the decline.

According to a district report on COVID-19 cases, the week of Dec. 7 showed 84 cases with a daily average of 17. For the week of March 1, total cases reported were 29 with an average of six per day, and for the week of March 8, 30 reported cases with the average of six per day.

The plan raised some concerns from board members, but none expressed opposition. However, a vote by the board to allow the plan to be implemented won’t be held until the March 22 board meeting.

A letter to the board from the district’s teachers union supported a safe return to the classroom, but also raised concerns about how to handle unmasked situations — such as lunch — contact tracing and adherence to safety protocols in the school buildings.

Roy said the average class size would be 20, although a letter to the board from a teacher said the dimensions of her classroom would be tight for 20 students.

Class size and arranging the needed distance between students is a concern for some board members such as Angela Sinkler, who is a nurse and said she worries some classrooms may be too tight.

Roy said each school and classroom will have obstacles to overcome to meet the guidelines, which he expects will be successfully handled by school principals and teachers.

“We can’t manage this to the extreme. The vast number of classroom sizes would be in the teens. That number will be guided on a room-to-room basis,” he said.

Students behavior at lunch is another area with its own problems because it will be a maskless situation.

Lunch time is a concern and the problems would be worked out, Roy said, noting many districts have been operating all year.

An online question to Roy asked whether opening school is a push by the state or by Roy, to which he replied, “There is not a push by the state. It’s from us. We need to get kids back to school.”

Another question was whether the district has taken in consideration coronavirus variants, which Roy said was a concern raised to health experts who agreed it is not a deterrent to opening schools.

There are 5,800 kindergarten through fifth grade students that make up the district’s elementary school population, and at this point Roy said it is not clear how many elementary school teachers have been vaccinated.

“Everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be prior to April 12,” he said.

Roy hopes the board will approve the reopening plan. As to what would stop it, he said, “If cases spiked in the community and the Bethlehem Health Bureau advised us not to.”