HYBRID MOMENTS
District reaffirms school hybrid reopening plan amid COVID-19 pandemic »
ROBBINSVILLE » Stay the course.
Robbinsville Public Schools, unswayed by new developments, still aims to reopen for hybrid and remote instruction beginning Sept. 8 despite a COVID-19 public health emergency that has prompted some districts to go 100% virtual.
“The final decision may eventually still be taken from our hands,” Robbinsville’s newly hired Superintendent of Schools Brian Betze said in a letter to parents dated Aug. 13, “but, as of today, the district will open for both hybrid and remote instruction on September 8th as stipulated in our reopening plan.”
“Our approach is to execute our ‘Reopening Plan’ as designed and advance both the hybrid and fullremote options,” Betze added. “The administrative team, along with staff and parents, has been feverishly and methodically developing the protocols which serve as the backbone of a safe and secure opening.”
The New Jersey Department of Education forced districts across the Garden State to prepare for hybrid instruction, and Gov. Phil Murphy earlier this summer declared schools “will open for in-person instruction and operations in some capacity” to start the 2020-21 academic year.
With New Jersey and the United States still facing a public health emergency, Murphy issued Executive Order No. 175 on Aug. 13 giving educators a new option: Any district that is unable to satisfy the health and safety requirements for in-person instruction “may provide full-time remote instruction to all students.”
Under Murphy’s directive for reopening, school districts must follow a litany of aggressive social distancing guidelines, including routine cleaning and sanitization of classrooms and mandatory face coverings for students and staff, to resume in-person instruction in some capacity.
Robbinsville is prepared to meet those guidelines when a significant number of students report to school on Sept. 8, according to district officials.
As of July 28, about 37% of the families within Robbinsville Public Schools selected remote learning districtwide, according to a presentation Betze delivered last month, showing most parents felt comfortable with a limited in-person instruction regime beginning in September.
For the families who insist upon sending their children to school for inperson learning, these students will be split into two cohorts or groups.
In the plan for hybrid learning, one group of students will attend school for in-person learning on Mondays and Tuesdays and the second group of students will report to school on Wednesdays and Thursdays, while Fridays will swing between the two groups.
Both cohorts will be subjected to remote learning on some days and inperson learning on other days under this hybrid educational model. All inperson students must be screened for COVID-19 symptoms prior to reporting for school, and this responsibility falls upon the parents and students.
“We are going to ask parents to do the health screening,” Betze said in his presentation. “We are going to ask parents if your child has a fever do not send them to school that day.”
Robbinsville Public Schools will have “hand sanitizing everywhere,” students and staff will be required to wear masks, the buildings will be disinfected on a “continuous basis” and social-distancing guidelines will be strictly enforced, according to Betze, who also said buses will be sterilized between each run.
The hybrid reopening plan as of now has the green light, but Robbinsville Public Schools is ready to pivot to 100% remote if warranted, according to the superintendent.
“I do think we have a very strong plan that is not going to please everybody,” he said, “but everyone needs to be ready to change and adapt to things.”
“We are stressing safety, and not just physical safety but emotional safety,” Betze added. “It’s very important to us that our children are emotionally healthy and able to come to school, and we recognize some of them may not be.”
Like the superintendent, Robbinsville’s Board of Education unanimously opposes 100% districtwide remote learning at this time.
“As members of the Robbinsville Board of Education,” they said in a letter to the community, “we fully support Superintendent Brian Betze’s decision to move forward with a hybrid-approach to opening schools; the plan that was presented to our community a couple of weeks ago. While it’s still a work in progress, we universally believe it’s headed in the right direction. We know none of this is easy. These are difficult decisions. However, leadership requires tough decisions, especially when it comes to the well-being and advancement of children in our society.”
A relatively small district with approximately 3,000 students, Robbinsville is not exactly a bellwether of public policy or self-sufficient to ignore what happens across the Garden State.
“If other neighboring districts decide to go fully remote,” Betze said in his letter to the community, “our ability to adequately staff our schools will be greatly impacted by staff living in those districts needing to take childcare leaves. This has the potential to force us to also go 100% remote.”
The nearby Trenton Public Schools will begin its schoolyear Sept. 10 with all students being taught virtually and 100% remotely, according to Ronald C. Lee, Trenton’s interim superintendent of schools. “The decision to reopen remotely was guided by our primary goals, the safety of our students, staff and the Trenton community, while providing a high quality education for all students,” he said in a letter dated Aug. 16.
The neighboring Hamilton Township School District tweaked its reopening plan in response to Murphy’s Executive Order No. 175 by swiftly postponing implementation of its A/B/C hybrid instructional model by one month.
Robbinsville, meanwhile, is staying the course.
“We have a great school system,” Betze said, “and we are not gonna let this beat us down, and we are gonna come out of this even stronger.”
Betze became the new superintendent of schools effective July 1, replacing former schools chief Dr. Kathleen “Kathie” A. Foster, who announced her retirement late last year well before COVID-19 morphed into a global pandemic.
Foster officially stepped down June 30, and Betze immediately hit the ground running with his decades of experience as a public educator.