Mixed verdict on full return of Stamford high schools
STAMFORD — Stamford elementary school students return to five-day-a-week in-person teaching next week, followed a week later by middle school students, but as of Monday, there was no plan in place to get high school students back full-time.
That left Lisa Butler disappointed.
The mother of a sophomore and senior at Stamford High School said she’s worried about her children’s education, and wants them back in classes on all school days.
“I think the bottom-line is these kids need a full education,” she said.
Liz Pensiero, who has a daughter at Stamford High School, also felt left out when only elementary and middle schools got a reopening date. “We’re seeing a lot of people jumping up and down from joy about the elementary schools … and the high school is suffering,” she said.
Pensiero added, “There’s been an incredible sense of loss for these high school kids in general.”
On the other end of the spectrum, some parents feel high schools are still not equipped to open up classes to more students.
Some parents want students back in class five days a week, while others are concerned increasing the number of students in buildings will make it unsafe.
Liz Levy, a Westhill High School parent, said a fulltime return is not what she agreed to.
Back in January, the district set a deadline for parents to choose either the hybrid model — in which students attend class every other day in person and follow along from home on others day — and the distance learning academy, which is fully remote. Levy chose the hybrid model.
“We knew exactly what we were signing up for and now all these kids are mandated to go back five days a week, at less than 6 feet,” she said. “I didn’t sign up for that. I signed up for hybrid, where they would be 6 feet apart and at half capacity.”
Levy said it is also her goal to get all students back in the building, but added, “I just want them to be there safely.”
One of the biggest challenges of re-opening high schools is that students there are not put into cohorts and kept from others, as is done in elementary and middle schools.
Further, the reaction from the high school community about a return to full-time is mixed.
An online petition created a few days ago by someone under the name “Stamford Student” states that returning to a pre-COVID schedule would be unsafe. By late Monday afternoon, over 800 people had signed it.
“As of now, the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) advises 6 feet of distance when possible, but we do not see how this will be possible if all students are in school,” the petition reads. “Rather than straight opposition to the idea, we would like to ask SPS to consider student opinions before coming to a final decision.”
Calvin Stone, a senior at Stamford High School, said he thinks students should be able to attend high school five days a week.
“We need to be getting a full education,” he said, adding that both freshmen and sophomores have yet to experience a full year of in-class learning.
Like the aforementioned petition, he also called for students to have more of a say in the eventual plan.
A discussion on re-opening is slated for Tuesday night as part of a “workshop meeting” of the Board of Education that was originally labeled a “special meeting.”
Superintendent Tamu Lucero said she doesn’t expect any announcement to be made about high schools by the meeting, but said the district could announce some upcoming “listening sessions” to get input from the community about re-opening.
“We’re trying to be very thoughtful,” she said. “I have been very clear throughout the time I have done this that if we don’t feel like we have the plan that is going to work best for SPS then we’re not going to move forward.”
Lucero announced the return to five-day-a-week classes at the elementary and middle school level on Friday. Under the proposed timeline, elementary students in the hybrid model can return to five-days-aweek in-person school starting March 8. Middle school students in the hybrid model will be able to do the same one week later, March 15.
The news was met with celebration from many parents of students in those grade levels, many of whom spoke at a recent Board of Education meeting about the need to have students back in buildings full-time.
Lucero said students in the academy — roughly a fourth of all Stamford students — will remain in the remote program even as hybrid students go back to a full-time schedule.
In her weekly message to the community, Lucero said the decision to open school to more students was made “due to the continued reductions in COVID-19 positivity rates in Stamford.”
A few weeks ago, the CDC released new guidelines about reopening schools. Lucero said those guidelines included recommendations for schools related to community transmission. She said Stamford’s transmission rate dropped from “substantial” to “moderate” risk in the CDC’s latest recommendations.
Under the moderate risk threshold of 10 to 49 new cases per 100,000 in the previous seven days, the CDC recommended “K-12 schools open for full inperson instruction,” with “physical distancing of 6 feet or more to the greatest extent possible.” Stamford’s most recently reported rate per 100,000, for the two weeks from Feb. 7 to Feb. 20, was 32.5.
In her letter, the superintendent did say that in order to allow more students into school buildings, the district’s current rule of 6 feet of separation between desks will no longer apply, as students would be closer than the 6 feet recommended.
But safety practices such as mask-wearing and and proper hygiene will still be enforced, Lucero wrote. Contact tracing and quarantine protocols will also remain the same.
On Monday, Lucero said the decision to allow for more students in schools was made with input from the city’s health department, led by director Dr. Jennifer Calder.
She said both Calder and Dr. Henry Yoon, the city’s medical adviser, “determined that there was no real health reason or safety reason why we wouldn’t consider reopening.”
“Health and safety will always be at the front of our decision-making,” Lucero said.