Students and staff are expected to return to school buildings on Aug. 5, but the school day as they knew it will look different, as precautions are put in place to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
On June 5, the state released guidance for school districts to help protect students and staff. Superintendent Laura Hammack summarized information from that 38-page document in a message to families and staff on June 8.
What, exactly, Brown County’s plan will look like hasn’t been determined yet. A task force is working on it in cooperation with the health department.
Initially, district leaders thought they’d need to wait until July 1 to receive the state’s guidance. “We were so grateful they got it issued out as fast as they did, and we were thrilled to learn we could plan for a return to school in person, on time in the fall. That’s what we’re all about. We just couldn’t be more excited that we could get those kids back to school,” Hammack said.
‘Make it doable’
Brown County Schools’ Return to School task force is made up of faculty and staff who are preparing for a “safe and efficient return to school from an instructional, health and safety and operational point of view,” Hammack’s letter to parents states.
“We will make it (the guidance) doable. We do find some components overwhelming. We are strategizing for how to deploy,” Hammack said.
School districts were tasked with keeping “two key factors at the foundation of decision making”: The ability to maintain a safe and health school environment, and the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community, the parent letter said.
The district must work with the Brown County Health Department to develop the return-to-school plan. That plan would have to be approved by the health department before going to the school board for its approval, Hammack said.
The goal is to have the plan in front of the school board at least two weeks before the start of school.
Parents also were sent a survey link last week about returning to school and were asked to complete one survey for each of their children attending school in the district. It asked questions such as whether or not parents have any concerns about sending their children back and why, and whether or not they’d support the wearing of masks by students or staff.
The recommendations from the state include some “culture shifts.” For instance, anyone who has symptoms of COVID-19 is advised to stay home from school or “they will be excluded by administration.”
“The huge culture shift for students and staff is you do not come to work or school sick. (Usually) it’s much easier to come to work sick than to write a lesson plan,” Hammack said.
It is also recommended that students and employees are taught how to self-screen for COVID-19 symptoms, and that touch-free thermometers are available in the health offices.
The Centers for Disease Control recommends that students and staff wear masks when returning to school. The school district would be responsible for providing masks if they do not have one. However, Hammack said the district will work with the health department to determine if that is necessary in Brown County Schools.
“Because of the (confirmed case) numbers we’ve seen in Brown County comparatively to communities that even surround us, we wonder, in partnership with the health department, if some of the strategies can be different based on our reality, and the mask issue is a question we have for the health department,” she said.
Brown County’s confirmed virus cases have risen slowly, to a total of 36 as of last week.
Other school districts are developing recommendations that if a staff member or student wishes to wear a mask for any reason, those districts would support that, Hammack said.
“It might be, if the health department considers this, that a mask would be worn in classroom A if a situation presents that was necessary and needed. But it could be across the way, maybe not,” she said.
Other health protocol recommendations from the state include having an isolation space for students and staff who are sick that is separate from the health office; requiring everyone to wash their hands throughout the day; and shutting down water fountains.
Because the CDC states that it is more detrimental to young learners to be isolated from school buildings, Hammack said some school buildings, like the junior high and high school, may operate differently, with older students choosing the remote learning option. That was a question on the parent survey as well.
But older Brown County students may choose to attend school in person, since most live in rural areas way from friends.
“We think more will take up that remote learning option. That is a state trend idea. We also wonder if Brown County might be different,” Hammack said.
‘Not … a normal year’
Even though students will be able to be back in buildings with their teachers, “this is not going to be a normal year,” Hammack said.
Recommendations from the state include staggering the use of communal spaces like playgrounds and cafeterias; reorganizing classes like physical education and choir for smaller group instruction; eliminating field trips and assemblies; eliminating self-serve food and communal stations in cafeterias along with installing sneeze guard protections; and social distancing for lines.
“We can really get in the weeds when we start to think about cleaning protocols for an entire school day and ways to construct the school day to be respectful of social distancing,” Hammack said.
“Take, for example, just lunch, so thinking about where lunch will take place. Will it take place in a larger space, like a cafeteria? Or will we use that space and other spaces to more equally distribute students? Will it take place in the classroom? All big questions. Then, once you figure out the social distance aspect of where, then how does a full sanitization happen for a turnover? When you’re getting a new group in, how do I ensure that space is safe?”
To help with keeping areas clean, students and staff will be taught to that it’s their personal responsibility to their community to make sure their space is “clean and tidy,” Hammack said.
Extra-curricular and co-curricular activities will be phased in with different restrictions starting July 6. During the final phase, starting Aug. 15, competitions can begin and locker rooms can be used at over 50 percent capacity if needed.
Under state guidance, buses should be disinfected prior to school starting and will be disinfected more frequently than previous years. Assigned seats are also recommended, along with drivers wearing personal protection equipment and being trained to notice COVID-19 symptoms.
A confirmed case response plan also will be developed with the health department. If a positive case is found in a school, the CDC recommends that the building close for two to five days with remote learning being provided during the closure.
“We will have a positive case. We know that. We’re doing the work now to ensure that we have a robust plan when that happens,” Hammack said.
The state also recommends that the school calendar be reviewed, with shorter or longer breaks being considered.
Bridging the gap
The 2019-2020 school year was converted to a virtual format after spring break due to the pandemic, with Brown County students completing work at home through the first week of May.
State guidance says that if a family does not feel comfortable sending their child to school in the fall, remote learning should be provided.
Hammack said that the response from parents about bringing students back to the school buildings this fall is a continuum.
“I have not really seen much in the middle,” she said. “Folks want their students back in school and believe and trust we’ll make that this space as safe as possible. Or, we have those that just really don’t feel ready for a return to brick-and-mortar until there is some sort of long-term solution to the virus.”
Hammack said the district is committed to being responsive to both ends, along with anyone in between. “That’s why we’re developing our plan to include an in-person option and a remote option. We will have synchronously remote learning happening while we will have in-person instruction, which is something new for us,” she said.
The e-learning that happened at the end of the school year shows that providing remote learning for some students is possible next school year.
But a gap in broadband internet access can prevent families from using that option. That also affected some students who were unable to connect for e-learning the last two months of school. Paper options were provided to students who needed them.
During the e-learning period between March and May, Hammack said “attendance” rates were between 95 and 97 percent for each grade, and that’s similar to a traditional school day.
“They had very few students that didn’t connect. It wasn’t necessarily 100-percent, perfect engagement, but these teachers and principals called and called and called to make these connections. It was amazing,” she said.
“The junior high, one night, there were 70 people they were going to call.”
But there’s still a percentage of students who essentially stopped learning in March, she said. There is an instructional working group within the Return to School Task Force that is focusing on assessing those students and helping them catch up.
The first task will be to assess students during the first week or two back to school. Hammack expects the need for remediation will be higher at the start of next school year than after a normal summer.
Classrooms also will spend some extra time getting students adjusted to being in class again.
“We’re looking at the first few days of school being much more focused on the social-emotional learning aspect of processing what happened, and also the fact that school might look a little bit different than what you were used to and why,” she said.
“It could be that a family wants their child to go to school for the reasons they believe in, but the student is very anxious about coming back to school. We have to work through that. That gap needs to be remediated, then academically, we have to figure out where students are, then talk about individualizing instruction.”
Hammack said that a “silver lining” of this pandemic and school closure is that families appreciate teachers now more than ever, “that the teacher is an extraordinarily respected and critical component in the life of their child. … I think we’ve taken teachers for granted for a long time, and I hate that this has sort of illuminated that. I think our teachers rose to the top. They were just extraordinary,” she said.
As the start of school nears, Hammack said the responsibility the district has to employees and students to keep them safe and healthy in school buildings weighs on her mind. This includes having flexible attendance policies and instituting cleaning procedures to keep everyone safe, all while figuring out how to socially distance hundreds of students and staff.
“Welcoming folks back to brick-and-mortar is a gift, but it is a massive burden and a massive responsibility,” she said.
“We’re developing this plan to give it our very, very best. It’s going to be great.”
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If you want to read the entire state guidance document for the reopening of schools, look for this story on bcdemocrat.com and a link to the document will be included with it.
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