Jones: Reopening schools requires a great deal of work

GREENWICH — The magnitude of preparing for school this fall while protecting students, staff and their families from a second wave of the coronavirus is not lost on Greenwich Public Schools Superintendent Toni Jones.

The school district has a lot of work to do to prepare for this fall and the possible reopening of classrooms, Jones told school board members recently.

Greenwich Public Schools is planning for multiple scenarios, which may include: a full reentry back into the schools, a full distancelearning approach or a hybrid approach of inschool and distance learning, she said. The superintendent also walked through these scenarios in a letter to parents sent home last week.

Getting to school is the first hurdle, Jones said. Current guidance for school bus capacity would allow only 12 students per large yellow bus. Buses that carry siblings, who can sit together in one seat, could handle a few more students.

Once on school premises, all individuals who enter the buildings would likely be required to have their temperatures taken, Jones said. This guidance comes from the Task Force for Connecticut, on which the district’s director of nursing served.

There would be about 12 to 15 students per classroom, given the square footage of each room, to maintain social distancing, Jones said. Making space for all the children and spreading out staff would require converting media centers, cafeterias and other spaces into makeshift classrooms.

The facilities team is looking to install no-touch fixtures, such as automatic faucets and paper towel dispensers, and is preparing for an increased level of disinfecting and cleaning.

Looking ahead to July, when summer school starts, the classes will be online for general-education students and in-person for special-education students. There will be live instruction, Jones told the school board.

But live instruction would look different for the fall, Jones said. If only half of students can be in the classroom at one time, teachers would need cameras that follow them as they move about the classroom, Jones said.

“A teacher doesn’t just stand and talk at kids,” she said.

“It is going to take a tremendous amount of work” for school buildings to be ready this September, Jones predicted.

The option of a full re-entry this fall would not be possible in this short time frame for preparations, she said.

Assuming there is no immunization for the coronavirus this fall, Jones said that some continued form of distance learning would be the most likely scenario. The Greenwich school buildings have been closed since March 12, with distance learning in place, during the coronavirus outbreak.

The state may issue an executive order to look at hybrid models, Jones said. In the hybrid model, where students are sometimes face-to-face and sometimes at home, students would need to be dismissed for distance learning only if one student tests positive, Jones said.

“You’re out two to five days, you’re in school and out of school,” she said.