Board sees 5-day week for students in the fall

The Bethel Park School Board plans to vote next week on a motion returning students to school five days a week for the 2021-22 school year, with a remote option available to parents who want to keep their children home.

The board discussed the matter, along with changes to the district’s school reopening health and safety plan, at its Tuesday committee meeting. The motion will be placed on the April 27 meeting agenda, stating that students will be able to return to the classroom full time in the fall.

“I can’t foresee a situation where everyone’s had the opportunity to be vaccinated and we’re not in school five days,” said board member Ken Nagel. “I won’t entertain anything but five days in the fall.”

Currently, the district is offering four-day-a-week in-school learning, with Friday as a remote day for students and a deep-clean day for the schools.

District administrators said at the meeting that a five-day option will not be available for the current school year.

Assistant superintendent for administration Zeb Jansante said for the 2020-21 school year, “We are compelled to offer remote learning,” as an option from the state of Pennsylvania.

“We won’t know until this summer if the state will continue that approach or if they will lighten it up to the individual local discretion,” Mr. Jansante said.

Board member Barry Christenson said it was best to not wait until the state requirements are announced in the summer.

“Let’s assume now everyone is in school five days and we’re doing remote learning,” he said.

Mr. Nagel agreed, stating, “Plan for the worst — hope for the best.”

As far as the revised health and safety plan, Mr. Jansante explained several changes to the board.

The district does a deep cleaning of its school buildings every Friday, and under the new plan, after that deep cleaning the cases of COVID-19 in the individual building would go to zero, so every Monday, the building would start with zero, Mr. Jansante said.

In the past, if cases were identified, the school would have to close for anywhere from three to seven days.

Mr. Jansante offered an example of if there were two cases in an elementary building and that student was in school yesterday, “We clean the school beginning after school today — because you have to wait a 24-hour period.”

He said the cleaning would be done overnight.

Then, students could potentially arrive back to school the next morning without any interruptions.

The revised health and safety plan also adds a phrase about playground use and equipment, which asks students to sanitize the equipment both before and after use. The equipment will also be cleaned at least daily.

A limited number of essential visitors will be allowed in the school buildings at the building principal’s discretion. Visitors had not been allowed in the buildings previously.

Field trips will be limited, and groupwork in the classrooms will be limited, with social distancing.

Mr. Jansante also stressed that “social distancing is really important,” even for those who have been fully vaccinated.

“I want to remind everyone that if you are fully vaccinated, you can still contract COVID-19,” he said. “Please don’t let your guard down.”

Mr. Jansante said all employees are still being asked to maintain wearing masks at all time and to social distance as much as possible.