‘So many questions, very little answers’
Return to in-person school scares some, can’t come soon enough for others
Show us the details.
That is the common refrain from teachers and parents alike to the announcement late Thursday that the state intends school to be a full-time, in-person experience this fall.
Instruction statewide went virtual in March as the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic swept across the state.
Whether they are for or against the idea of trying return to a new, in-classroom normal for a full 180 days in the 2020-21 school year, most who were forced to live the last three months in quarantine have questions that a one-page executive summary released Thursday fails to answer.
Unveiled by Gov. Ned Lamont and Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona, the plan calls for school to resume five days a week
in the fall with no testing for the virus and no class size restrictions.
Instead the guidance is for face masks all around, social distancing by keeping classes of students together as much as possible throughout the school day and frequent cleaning of both hands and surfaces. Students may also find themselves learning and eating lunch outside, weather permitting.
Details are promised in a 50-page guide that state Department of Education officials say won’t be out until Monday.
Not good enough
That is not good enough for Keyla Medina, a Bridgeport parent with one daughter left at Fairchild Wheeler’s magnet high schools.
“I have so many questions and very little answers,” Medina said.
One of her greatest concerns is how the school day will begin and end. Fairchild has nearly 1,500 students who jam the entryways as students queue up to get through metal detectors.
“Who will monitor the students to make sure they are social distancing?” Medina wondered.
Additionally she questioned how lunch will work. At the elementary level, how will little ones get by without playtime with their friends? How will they be kept from rubbing their eyes?
“Having a mask on for one hour is hard enough for an
adult,” Medina said.
Cardona told reporters on Thursday that mask wearing is an adaptable habit for even young children.
Leslie Blatteau, a social studies teacher at Metropolitan Business Academy in New Haven, called it disheartening to hear the governor announce a full reopen for the fall, on the same day the nation broke records of new cases. Cases may be receding in Connecticut, but in many other states they are on the rise.
“I hope we can come together and demand more support from the state during this public health and economic crisis,” Blatteau said.
The reopening plan is prefaced on the state’s continue decline in cases of the virus. A sharp uptick could force schools to return to remote learning, Cardona said.
Even so, Kamera Dukes, who has a daughter at Stamford High School and a physically disabled son scheduled to start kindergarten, said she does not feel comfortable sending them to school in the fall full time.
“There are too many contingencies that have not been figured out,” she said. “This is not the kind of thing to just try this out and see how it works.”
Bring it on
Others are excited for a planned return to classrooms in the fall. Norwalk parent Nora King’s kids are among them.
King said her daughter, a second-grader, struggled with packets the district sent home and her son, a sixthgrader, did not experience success with online courses.
“I think (the state’s) on the right course,” King said. “The kids need the social interaction. My son is so much happier now that he’s back playing tennis, baseball, swimming. He’s a kid.”
She likes that the planning is occurring on the state level.
“It should be state-mandated and should be across the board,” King said.
Nicole Meyer, a Stratford parent who will have a kindergartner at Six to Six Magnet School in Bridgeport, also wants school in the fall sans the mask requirement.
“The kids need it and their immune system needs it,” Meyer said. “They need to just wash with soap and water.”
Catherine Logan, the parent of a Torrington sixthgrader, said returning to school is important for the emotional and mental wellbeing of her children.
“My daughter is very excited to go back,” Logan said.
As long as desks are spaced appropriately, Logan said students should only have to wear masks in the hallways, buses or large gatherings, but not in the classroom.
Erika Gadson, who has a fourth-grader at Northeast Elementary School in Stamford, said schools should absolutely reopen in the fall.
She called the distancelearning model forced upon families in the spring fine only in the short term.
“There was no real academic routine for these kids,” Gadson said. “We are not teachers.”
Gadson agrees with the few reopening details she has heard.
“Face coverings and increased sanitation are great,” Gadson said. “I think kids need to move around the building less. Having music teachers and art teachers move ... while the kids stay put should be what
they’re looking at”
On the fence
Judy Vivona, who has a son at Stamford High, just doesn’t know.
“I would love to see the schools reopen in the fall so the kids can go back and enjoy their socialization but I’m very concerned about the restrictions,” Vivona said.
She can’t see students social distancing. Her son is a sophomore who has no interest in being anywhere he has to wear a mask for long stretches.
“If he would feel more comfortable doing remote learning, then I would gladly support that,” Vivona said.
Neil Cohen, a Stamford parent of twin first-graders and a third-grader, all at Toquam Magnet Elementary School, is on the fence.
“Financially, getting back to work is most important,” he said. He likened helping his kids with homeschooling to a second full-time job.
Yet, he just doesn’t know how safe a return to school will be.
“If they can open the school safely and do it, I’m all for it,” he said.
Teachers also have reservations.
In a joint statement, Connecticut Education Association President Jeff Leake and AFT Connecticut Vice President Mary Yordon, of Norwalk, said the road map to in-person classroom instruction must be clear, universal, focused on science and the advice of top health experts.
The two union leaders deem Lamont’s plan short on specifics and silent on some of the most pressing issues associated with reopening schools this fall.
They expected to see a call for smaller class sizes, routine testing for COVID-19, guarantees for a state-provided supply of personal protective equipment and more details on how buildings will be kept virus-free.
“We know everyone’s eager to get kids back to school. We as teachers are eager to get back but we need to do that safely,” said Yordon, who is also president of the Norwalk Federation of Teachers.
Instead of planning for “best case,” she said the governor ought to be planning for the “what ifs.”
Ana Batista, a bilingual teacher and newly elected president of the Bridgeport Education Association, wonders where the state plan leaves local district reopening task forces that the state mandated. She is on the Bridgeport one.
“Just today we had a meeting on scheduling,” Batista said Friday. She was surprised to hear the state plan calls for students to stick together with their class for most of the day.
Batista wants the state to address how students with asthma can wear face mask or how students learning English can learn to correctly pronounce words if they can’t see their teachers’ mouths through masks.
Julian Shafer, of Bridgeport, teaches at Danbury High School where he said it is virtually impossible to socially distance.
“The hallways are packed between periods,” Shafer said. “In my mind, almost guaranteeing transmission.”
Saying he was speaking for himself and not his union, Shafer called reopening a huge, politically and economically motivated mistake that will come at the expense of the most vulnerable.
Sheena Graham, a music teacher at Harding High School in Bridgeport, said she is as eager as anyone to get students back into school buildings.
“But we are talking about a life and death situation here,” said Graham, the state’s 2019 Teacher of the Year.
She questions how grouping student in a cohort at the high school level can work when the ability to chosoe classes is so important. None of her first-period music students last year had another class in common for the rest of the day, she said.
Then there is choir. Graham’s classroom does not have the dimensions to fit even 10 students at a time. That is at 6 feet. Students singing need even more space between them.
“Could we sing through masks? It is definitely not the most beautiful sound but it can be done,” Graham concedes.
Joanne Tolles, an English teacher at Danbury’s Alternative Center for Excellence, said she is OK with going back but expects more modifications than what has so far been described.
She wants class sizes limited to 15 students, bus capacity reduced to 50 percent, and face shields for teachers so learning can be visible and audible.
“Daily deep cleaning must happen,” Tolles said. “Temperature checks at bus stops and school entry.”
“Flexibility will be the key,” said Jason Lafreniere, a teacher at Torrington Middle School who said he wants to get back to a normal learning routine.
Lafreniere said guidelines laid out by the state are broad enough to allow districts to implement them with autonomy and within their specific situations.
“Virtual learning is not conducive to advancement especially for younger students,” Lafreniere said. “Alternatives should be made available for students and staff that are not themselves ready to return.”