Board OKs virtual return to school
Parents sound off on plans to return to classes
Parents, start planning: kids won’t be back in school for at least two months.
The North Penn School Board voted unanimously Thursday night to approve a return to school plan starting with virtual instruction only for at least the first quarter of the year.
“We so appreciate all of the work that has been done, and will continue to need to be done moving forward,” said board President Tina Stoll.
“It really has been a decision that none of us ever thought we would have to make. It’s really been weighing heavily on all of us,” she said.
Over the past two months, district administrators and the board have held a series of online public forum discussions, sharing details and hearing feedback on the latest state rules and regulations regarding returning to school.
Discussion had largely centered around three possible options: a full reopening with all students and teachers returning to school, a fully virtual environment where all would stay online, or a hybrid option with those who felt safe to return doing so.
In recent weeks, parents across the district have been surveyed about which option they’d prefer and whether parents would prefer their students take the bus, walk, or drive to school, and Superintendent Curt Dietrich shared those survey results Thursday night, along with the formal reopening plan that must be submitted for state approval.
“Response rates varied by school for the various choices there. In the aggregate, we were at 43 percent for in-person, 30 percent for hybrid, and 28 percent virtual,” Dietrich said, showing
the survey results broken down by school.
Regarding the transportation, out of a total of 7.670 survey responses across 17 district schools, 4,381 parents said their students would ride buses in a return to school, while 2,658 said they’d prefer or be able to drive, and 631 said they would walk — ratios of roughly 60 percent to 30 to ten-to-20 percent depending on the school.
“Typically, we would schedule bus transportation for around 11,000 students, and we had 4,381 on that. Those two pieces of information, we thought would be important to share with the community,” Dietrich said.
Before beginning their own discussion, the board heard feedback from nearly two dozen residents, sharing their thoughts on which plan they’d prefer. Resident Srinivas Kotwa said his biggest concern is that teachers and parents could also be exposed by students who return to school and could carry COVID-19 without symptoms, while resident Amie Bayrent said she runs a preschool that’s had no problems so far.
“The children all wear their masks appropriately, the teachers are all wearing their masks. We have nobody complaining, we know developmentally where they need to wear their masks, and how often; they’re constantly washing their hands,” she said.
Lisamarie Brody of Lansdale said she was worried her son’s individual educational plan would be compromised by learning online instead of in-person, while Jim Kerr of Lansdale said he had “full faith in the school district to keep our kids safe from anything.”
Corey Luby of Lansdale said his son was looking forward to face-to-face time with classmates and teachers in his senior year, while Lauren Wilson of North Wales said she “wouldn’t be able to sleep if something were to happen” to her daughter back in school.
North Penn Education Association President Sean Devlin thanked the administrators and board for their planning so far but asked both to consider headlines from across the country that COVID-19 is returning in areas that reopen.
“I cannot let that desire for my children’s education, and social well-being, to interfere with what I believe to be one of the dearest decisions that this district is going to have to make,” Devlin said.
“Not everybody is going to like it or accept it, but
I don’t see any other decision, other than to buy us some more time, and to try to go virtually and delay the opening of school,” he said.
Victor Minnick of Lansdale said he had two kids that are “going crazy being home all the time,” while Phil Goodwin of North Wales said he and his wife both work full time and have had trouble being teachers at the same time.
Gene Dyer of Harleysville said he appreciated the district asking about multiple options and his two sons would prefer to return, while Melanie Catanese of North Wales said she has four children in the district, one of whom has already lost a senior trip overseas.
“When they do go back to school, it is not going to be normal. They will be separated from their friends, limited in what they can do at recess, everyone will have masks on — children are not going to be free to be children in the sense we are used to seeing,” she said.
Suzanne Daywalt said she’s been a teacher at North Penn High School for 25 years, and asked the board to consider that while parents could have the choice to keep their student home, teachers might not.
“I am fearful that, in a rush to give every kid the opportunity to be social again, and back in school, we may be putting the adults in the buildings’ lives at risk, as well as some of the young people. And none of that is acceptable,” she said.
Amanda Brinkley of North Wales said she and her husband are both essential employees in the health care field, “so the virtual learning system, or hybrid, is not an option for us, and all of the other entailment employees who need to report on a daily basis.”
Fred Froehlich of Lansdale pointed out that North Penn’s large student body may work against the district in calculating the likelihood of cases.
“If this horrible situation infects, let’s just say at a minimum, one percent of children, there’s 3,000 kids at the high school alone, not to say anything about all of the middle and elementary schools,” he said.
Jason Ferguson, a councilman from Hatfield Borough, said he thought North Penn was “light years ahead” of nearby districts in terms of planning their response, while Wendi Smith of North Wales said she thought “there will never be a 100 percent right answer,” but she preferred the hybrid option.
Megan Yarnell of North Wales said she’s a single mom of two children in the district, and asked that the board consider asking the governor and state Legislature to extend subsidized child care programs if kids do stay home, a program currently scheduled to scale back as of Sept. 1 — and started a Change.org online petition to that effect after the meeting.
“I just want to address that, and plead with you, that if virtual is the way we need to go, that the school board really puts pressure on the state of Pennsylvania to make sure these kids at least get child care during that time, through a daycare, that is willing to provide that,” she said.
Kunbi Rudnick of Lansdale said she thought the hybrid and virtual options were “the best of both worlds” to ensure safety while continuing education, and Kathleen Hickok of Hatfield said she thought “the greatest resources the school district has, are our teachers and our administrators,” so she preferred the virtual option.
And Scott Alcott of North Wales said he’s a nurse administrator in Philadelphia who works with COVID-positive patients often and worries that any parent who works where the virus
might be, could expose tier children who could then spread it throughout a school.
“I want everyone to be thinking about those things because I’ve been going back-and-forth to a place where COVID is alive and well. It’s there today: I was on a floor with COVID patients today,” he said.
After roughly an hour of public comment and Dietrich’s presentation of the statistics, the board began to debate, with several members saying they were still worried about the risks to students and staff.
“Can we guarantee that we are going to keep every child safe, no matter how strictly we adhere to the guideline out there? No. We are a large district, and have many thousands of children that will be in the buildings,” said board member Christian Fusco.
Member Al Roesch said he was encouraged by a recent contract signed by Montgomery County meant to speed up the return of coronavirus test results, but said he’d rather see several more weeks of faster results before returning to school. Member Elisha Gee added that she worried what a quarantine of a week or two could do to students who do test positive.
“That will mean constant interruption in a child’s education. If they have to be quarantined for eight days, and then go back in a classroom, how many people will that even impact? the kids on the bus? The kids they go to dance class with, in the community?” she said.
Board member Tim MacBain said as a teacher in another district, he was closely watching reports of asymptomatic positive
cases among children elsewhere in the county.
“I’m not really sure if the answer to the question, of whether or not our children are safe — despite everyone’s efforts, and through no one’s fault — I’m not sure the answer is yes,” MacBain said.
And as an educator at the college level, board member Wanda LewisCampbell said “I love teaching face-to-face, I love the interaction... but when I’m looking at what’s happening across the country, safety is paramount in my mind.”
After each board member shared thoughts, Stoll asked Dietrich how often staff and the board could consider returning.
“I kind of feel it would have to be something that would make sense, like a marking period? I would imagine you don’t want to shift during the middle of a marking period,” she said.
Dietrich said the end of the first marking period in 2020-21 would be “approximately Nov. 6,” and that staff would “move mountains to make something happen” but would ideally need four to five seeks to survey parents again, determine staffing levels, make new hires, and prepare to come back.
After further discussion, board member Elisha Gee made a motion to approve the district’s proposed reopen plan with the all-virtual scenario at first, “with a possible shift to hybrid no later than Nov. 6, which I believe is the end of the marking period: the board will then assess the current conditions, and make a determination whether it’s necessary to continue with total remote delivery.”
Solicitor Kyle Somers said changes to that plan could still be discussed at any of the twice-monthly school board meetings between now and then.
Board member Jonathan Kassa asked if the district could consider “a scaffolded approach” that could send certain age groups back into school sooner than others, as conditions permit; Dietrich answered that staff would follow any direction eh board gave.
“We’ll be up at 5 a.m., tomorrow morning, rolling up our sleeves and getting at it. That’s the way we’re wired,” Dietrich said.
Board member Cathy Wesley said she “would feel more confident if we took a bit more time” to see if test results turn around faster and positives continue to decrease, and board member Juliane Ramic said she was “grateful the community is so engaged right now” and encouraged them to attend upcoming board committee meetings to learn more.
The board then voted unanimously to approve the motion for an all-virtual return through at least the first quarter. Stoll said any comments or feedback can be sent to schoolreopening@npenn.org or to board members’ individual email addresses, or made in future board and committee meetings.
North Penn’s full board next meets at 7 p.m. on Aug. 11 and the Education, Curriculum and Instruction committee next meets at 6 p.m. on Aug. 4; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.