Parents press for class return
Advocating for in-person learning at schools continues
The relationship between a pair of Palmer Township moms who started a Facebook group advocating for a return to in-person learning and their school district administration started out rocky.
At a Feb. 2 school board committee meeting, about a week after the Facebook group launched, Easton Superintendent David Piperato cited a “deliberate misinformation campaign” as a source of confusion in the community around what schools could do to bring more students back. During public comment, group co-creator Bonnie McCarthy threw out her prepared remarks and called Piperato a “bully.”
But then the lines of communication opened. Piperato now communicates regularly with McCarthy and Carly Smith, her neighbor, best friend and co-creator of the group, who then share with their 550 group members. The moms’ feelings shifted toward appreciation, even though Easton has yet to deliver the group’s ultimate goal: an opportunity to send their children to school full time.
“We looked at each other one day and said, ‘This is enough. What can we do?’” McCarthy said in recent interview. “We are so not the involved-inschool moms. No one knew us; now they all know us.”
Theirs is a movement gaining steam throughout the Lehigh Valley, led primarily by parents through several Facebook groups that share informa
tion, encourage letter-writing to administrators and school board members, recruit attendance at public meetings, hold outdoor rallies, and pitch yard signs in support of opening schools to all students who want to go five days a week.
The harms their children are facing from social isolation and interrupted instruction outweigh the risks associated with returning to school, they argue.
Most school districts in the Lehigh Valley have had hybrid schedules this school year, in which students attend school two days a week and learn remotely for three days. As Lehigh and Northampton counties remain in a state of “substantial” spread of coronavirus, the majority of districts stayed the course, finding little or no evidence of community spread within their schools but fearing what might happen if they bring in more students and are unable to physically distance them 6 feet apart.
The debate heated up the first week of February, when U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters in a White House briefing that “schools can safely reopen,” and that vaccinating teachers “is not a prerequisite.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki later clarified that this is not official guidance from the CDC.
CDC researchers in the Journal of the American Medical Association in late January affirmed the sentiment that schools can safely reopen, citing studies showing schools have not contributed meaningfully to community spread of the virus, but with the caveat that “all recommended mitigation measures must continue”: universal masking, limiting crowding through hybrid attendance models when needed, increasing ventilation, expanding screening. The CDC’s latest official guidelines for reopening schools doubles down on the 6-feet social distancing guidance in communities with higher levels of transmission, but for communities with lower levels of transmission, it said students and staff should be socially distanced only “to the greatest extent possible.”
In Pennsylvania, to stay open, schools must enforce universal masking when students cannot be more than 6 feet apart, by order of the health secretary. But actually maintaining 6 feet distance everywhere is merely a guideline, though it’s still the measurement used to determine who falls into contact tracing parameters.
That’s one key point these parent groups are fiercely advocating: schools should not treat 6 feet as a mandate, and should prioritize children in schools over space constraints.
Much more is known today about how to fight the virus and who spreads it, argue parents like Smith, who is a critical care nurse. Among her three children is a third grader who survived liver cancer and is considered high risk of COVID-19 complications.
“Do you think I would be fighting to send her to school if I thought she was going to be in danger? Absolutely not,” she said.
Nationally, they’re in the minority. A poll by the National Parents Union in the fall asked parents whether schools this year should prioritize improving the quality of online instruction or reopening school buildings, and parents choose the former 54%-37%. However, polling from the fall generally shows greater dissatisfaction and more perceived learning loss in hybrid and remote formats than in-person. There has not been reputable national polling this year of parents’ preferences.
Alison Ruta, a mother of two in Whitehall-Coplay School District, began waging her fight in September.
She saw her 12-year-old daughter, Grace, transform from a logic-driven lover of school to a traumatized seventh grader who is in therapy twice a week. Her 9-year-old, Curtis, is both bored and terrified by school, where, even when he goes, he can’t talk to his friends.
She connected with two other mothers, Courtney Lopez in Parkland and Jennifer Ortiz in Allentown, who expressed interest in taking their cause public. Together, the three started a Facebook group in October and organized a January rally in Whitehall Township, following rallies organized by groups in Palmerton and Southern Lehigh. Today, their Facebook group, called Rally to Reopen Lehigh Valley Schools, has more than 700 members.
Around the same time Ruta, Lopez and Ortiz formed their group, a dozen frustrated parents in Southern Lehigh School District turned an email chain into a Facebook page called Southern Lehigh Advocates for Full Education to share information, ideas and questions, and plan their own rally, group co-creator Vickie Hall Maund said.
That frustration came in part after Southern Lehigh reverted from all hybrid to a remote model for secondary students less than two weeks before the start of the school year, after a significant number of staff took leave under the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act. The district secured staffing to bring those students back in mid-October.
The Facebook group now has more than 500 members, including some doctors and teachers, parent Bill Coyle said.
“I think people have this perception of these Facebook groups like we’re a bunch of yahoos chiming off, complaining and not doing anything,” said Coyle, a sales rep.
They do their own research on the impacts facing children, from suicide risk to learning gaps, and turn parents out to most school board meetings. Today, Ruta, an esthetician, spends 10 to 40 hours a week on the cause — emailing administrators, posting in the group, reaching out to elected representatives. The page also serves as a support group for parents, she said, whose own mental health is suffering with their children’s.
“I don’t even call it a group anymore; I call it a movement,” she said.
Last week, a group of parent advocates in East Penn School District started an online petition to urge a return to full-time in-person instruction. In less than a week, nearly 600 have signed.
The movement has taken a political turn in southeastern Pennsylvania. In January, a Montgomery County mom founded the Keeping Kids in School PAC to support school board candidates who endorse reopening schools for in-person learning.
Most Lehigh Valley schools already bucked state recommendations by remaining in hybrid learning after Lehigh and Northampton counties moved into the “substantial spread” category of coronavirus transmission in November.
After the winter holidays, several schools made plans to reopen further, for at least four days a week. In some cases, school leaders had their eyes on these plans since the fall.
In Northampton, Superintendent Joseph Kovalchik said his administration wanted to make the change since before the holidays, but the spike in cases set it back. A parent survey in October bolstered this desire: 65% said they’d choose more face-to-face instruction even if it means children are less than 6 feet apart. Among kindergarten through second grade parents, 80% expressed that preference.
Kovalchik, like many administrators and board directors over the last several months, gets many emails opining in either direction from parents. But he said he ultimately recommends decisions based on data: the survey, the low transmission rates among children, and the lack of evidence of community spread in schools.
In Whitehall-Coplay, school Director George Makhoul introduced the four-day idea in October, but the motion was tabled in a divisive vote. In January, the school board remained divided, but ultimately voted to move to the four-day model, against the recommendation of the administration. Its classrooms will achieve 3 to 6 feet of social distancing depending on class size.
Southern Lehigh also made the decision this month to move to four days of in-person instruction a week, achieving spacing of 5 feet at least. The district surveyed parents in October about four- or five-day in-person instruction, “to guide future instructional model decisions,” Superintendent Kathleen Evison wrote.
Other schools have remained steadfast on the desire to keep students 6 feet apart. At a recent Easton Area School Board meeting, Piperato reminded the board of a fall survey in which only 45% of parents said they would feel comfortable sending their child back to school knowing the district could not guarantee 6 feet. Superintendents in other school districts, like Parkland and Bethlehem, have said that they do not foresee changing their instructional models unless outside circumstances change, such as the level of community spread and the 6-feet guideline.
Parkland Superintendent Richard Sniscak remained consistent on that point even after one school board member on Tuesday expressed support for resuming full-time in-person instruction and a slew of parents joined the meeting to support that idea.
In Whitehall-Coplay, school Director George Williams brought the issue to the table Feb. 8, making a motion to reverse its earlier decision and remain in hybrid. That motion failed narrowly. The board limited public comment to just 20 minutes, but those 20 minutes brought forth a diverse set of opinions.
Two parents arguing against reopening, Toni Guedes and LoriAnn Fehnel, shared their first-hand experience with the virus, each saying one of their children now has to see a specialist as they deal with long-lasting effects of the disease.
“This never was or will be a discussion of whether in-person schooling is important,” Guedes said. “My concern is we are losing any safe option.”
While parents like Guedes and Fehnel respect the passion and rights of the parent organizers, they said they feel the cohort of parents who prefer the compromise are losing their voice.
“They have the right to be heard,” Fehnel, a former health care worker, said. “But it seems like the people who want the hybrid model are being drowned out.”
“Everyone has a right to do what they think is right for their kids. I get these groups,” said Guedes, a marketing consultant. “My issue is ... going back to four-day eliminates options for anyone who gets that need to be in school but also respects the recommendations.”
The reopening issues inspired parents on both sides of the debate to try to run for school board in Whitehall, including Fehnel, as well as mothers Allison Schultz and Elizabeth Foxe, who are members of the Rally to Reopen Lehigh Valley Schools page. Jennifer Ortiz also put her hat in for Allentown School Board.
Coyle, the Southern Lehigh parent, pointed out that the movement has gotten hundreds of community members involved in their school board meetings outside of tax season.
In terms of changing the boards’ decisions, it’s difficult to know how effective the groups have been.
In Salisbury Township, for example, the school board in early January approved a return to five-day instruction, first for kindergarten and first grade, and then the rest in February. At their meetings, too, they saw sometimes 200 parents participate, board President George Gatanis said.
But their decision came from the CDC’s acknowledgment of schools’ being safe places, with the right mitigation measures, and their concern for the social and mental well-being of their students. It happened that this board was on the same page with this subset of parents, he said.
Even in a district where that’s not the case, the school board doesn’t discount any subset of parent opinion, Parkland School Board President David Hein said. Many factors weigh into its decisions.
But parents pushing for reopening have seen small wins.
Between the two, McCarthy and Smith have five children in Easton Area School District.
McCarthy’s fifth grader, who has autism, used to hate and almost refuse to go to school. This year, the few days he can go, he’s happy, she said.
“If that doesn’t speak volumes, I don’t know what does,” said McCarthy, a stay-at-home mom. “That’s how starved of any kind of normalcy and routine and communication these kids are.”
The two formed the Facebook group to try to push district leaders to find ways to accommodate all students who want to learn in person, whether by relaxing social distancing, opening unconventional classroom space or investing in testing.
“It’s not just a forum to complain,” Smith said. “We want to get solutions.”
In an effort to dispel claims of being a “misinformation campaign,” they sought legal counsel to go over the state’s attestation forms that schools signed, pointing out the language showing 6 feet is not a hard requirement to stay open, but a recommendation. In early February, the Easton administration gave a presentation to the board saying that the state would force the district into remote learning if they do not abide by 6-feet distancing.
On Tuesday, Piperato began his COVID-19 presentation to the school board with an apology.
“At our last board meeting, I accused a group of parents of distributing some misinformation, and I was wrong. In fact, the information that they were sharing was accurate, and the information I had ... was indeed inaccurate,” he said. “I want to apologize to that group of parents who have been passionate and working behind the scenes to communicate with each other and communicate with the board and with the superintendent.”
However, he made clear that he and the board still won’t consider sacrificing 6 feet while the county is in substantial spread. Instead, he proposed a plan that would phase back kindergarten through second grade students to fourday instruction, but only after the county has seen at least two weeks of “moderate” community spread.
At that point, he said, the district may have to consider accepting less than 6 feet of distancing.
“Today, we’re not close [to moderate],” he said. “That could change in a week or two.”
Ruta believes the mobilized groups of parents will persist even after schools open, focusing on mental health in schools. Even if they don’t get the results they want this school year, she believes the effort will have been worth it. In the meantime, her group has another outdoor rally planned for Feb. 27.
“My kids will look back and say, ‘My mom fought,’” she said.