Board Outlines Plan for Fall: Options for Families, but Details Uncertain
Two days a week in school, three days a week at home.
Or: all-remote instruction.
Families in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District will have a choice this fall about whether to send their children into school buildings two days a week or have them learn entirely from home. That is the foundation of a complex plan for school reopening presented at the July 20 board meeting.
Board president David Grande noted that people have strong and differing ideas about how to open schools responsibly. He said the district’s plan seeks to balance health and safety concerns with educational imperatives.
“There are no perfect solutions,” Grande stressed. “We need to come together...to find solutions that balance the needs and concerns of different members of our community, protect public health, and maximize educational opportunity for all of our students.”
Three separate committees of district teachers, administrators, and staff have been working for weeks to put together the plans. While the general outlines are in place, many details (“phase two decisions”) will be filled in over the coming weeks, said Superintendent Lisa Palmer.
Two Cohorts
Students attending in-person school will be divided into two cohorts.
One cohort will learn in school buildings on Mondays and Tuesdays and remotely for the rest of the week. The other cohort will convene in school buildings on Thursdays and Fridays. On Wednesdays, all instruction will be remote, while schools are disinfected with new cleaning equipment. Along with asynchronous online learning, student clubs, office-hour support, and teacher preparation and collaboration will take place on Wednesdays, according to Director of Education Denise Citarelli Jones.
Having fewer children in school buildings will make it possible to maintain 6 feet of distance between people, Palmer said.
According to the district’s 38-page “School Reopening Health and Safety Plan,” students will remain 6 feet apart “to the extent possible.” When this is not possible, “target not less than 3 feet unless using additional PPE,” the plan advises. Emptier school buses will allow only two children per seat.
The district is acquiring masks, hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, and other supplies, according to Gina Ross, director of student services.
Siblings will all be assigned to the same cohort, even if they attend different schools.
Different Versions for Different Ages
Elementary school children will attend full days of school on their designated days. This “will feel familiar and will provide the learning, social-emotional, and physical options that a shorter day would not satisfy for our youngest learners,” explained Citarelli Jones.
A morning meeting will bring in-person and online students together every day, Nether Providence Elementary School principal Al Heinle reported.
Physically distanced lunch and recess will be offered.
While at home, elementary students will engage in asynchronous learning, including watching videos made by their teachers. Synchronous online support will be available at times throughout the day.
For middle school students, in-person days will end at 1:15, giving them 3/4 of a normal school day in the building. Afternoon Zoom sessions will supplement in-person teaching and offer teacher-student interaction even on days students are not in school.
“We have a lot of interactions between teachers and students throughout the course of the week,” Strath Haven Middle School assistant principal Stephen Krall said. This interaction — a feature of all the fall plans — contrasts with last spring, when schools shut down abruptly and teachers scrambled to figure out how to teach online. Administrators, teachers, and parents are all eager to avoid the missteps of that experience.
District high school students, most able to learn independently, will attend in-person school for half days only, Citarelli Jones said. They will receive synchronous instruction four days a week, for part of the day, either in person or on Zoom. Teachers will offer the same lesson twice each day, once in person — in the morning, to one cohort — and again on Zoom in the afternoon to the other cohort.
The cohort model will bring teachers together with no more than 15 students at one time, according to Strath Haven High School principal Greg Hilden, who began his job on July 1. “That allows you to go to a different level of detail [and provide] a different level of attention to students,” he said.
All district students will have the option to attend school entirely from home, via what Palmer called “the WSSD Academy.” High school students opting for the academy will coordinate Zoom times with both of the in-person cohorts, giving them opportunities for synchronous interaction with teachers and peers.
Questions and (Some) Answers
School board members had many questions about the developing plans.
Q: Can students switch between cohort and all-online (WSSD Academy) options?
A: Yes, but it’s not yet clear how or how often.
Q: Will in-person education rely on computers and other devices, or will it be more tactile?
A: There will be tactile experiences in the classrooms, but cleaning and other issues are being worked out.
Q: Will new material be taught even on days students are learning remotely from home?
A: Yes.
Q: Will free or reduced-price lunch be available for eligible students even on days they are not in school?
A: Yes, but the details are being worked out.
Q: Will all three district elementary schools be following the same curriculum?
A: Yes.
Palmer pledged that a page of frequently asked questions will be available on the WSSD website soon.
Detailed information about reopening will be published on the district website, posted on social media, and emailed directly to families, she said.
A “red” plan — in case the state once again orders schools closed — was also outlined, although in less detail.
A Health Perspective: Distancing, Distancing, Distancing
David Rubin, a professor of pediatrics and director of the PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and Meredith Matone, Science Director of the PolicyLab, offered the board a health perspective on reopening. The pair, who also spoke to the board in May, have emerged as national experts on the subject, Grande said.
Rubin called the cohort plan “a strong start” because it enables physical distancing.
If implemented carefully and well, the plan could offer strong protection to students, staff, and families, he said, offering an example from his personal experience. “In March, when I returned to my office at CHOP, we were terrified. We see sick kids every day.” But his office created distancing protocols and required masks. As a result, “We have not had a single case of transmission to a staff member at CHOP.”
Distancing is the single most important step people can take to avoid transmission, Rubin said. He stressed that 6 feet must remain the standard. Masks, hand hygiene, screening for symptoms, and quarantine are also crucial.
On a pessimistic note, Rubin observed that turn-around for test results will likely remain slow, limiting testing’s usefulness in containing the disease.
He also anticipates a resurgence of COVID-19 in the Northeast. “We are seeing evidence that it is moving into our region,” he said.
Rubin noted that a new study from South Korea suggests that symptomatic children and adolescents spread the disease as much as adults do. This means that sick kids can infect their families and teachers.
Communities with little disease are in the best position to reopen, Rubin stressed. He suggested that a 2 or 3% rate of positive tests would offer a strong chance to keep schools safe and open, adding, “Only a couple of states have that now.”
Pennsylvania’s positive test rate has been between 5 and 5.5% for much of July, according to the commonwealth’s website.
“All roads lead back to the amount of disease circulating in your community,” Rubin said.
Community Response: Confusion and Creativity
Families and teachers are struggling to grasp the implications of the plans.
“I am totally overwhelmed,” said Sara Kelly, whose five children will attend three WSSD schools next fall. “It is obvious that the school district has worked very hard to do the right thing by the children. But I have absolutely no idea how I can manage this.”
“I was shocked by how much less this was than what I was hoping for,” said Helge Hartung, a CHOP physician who had hoped his son would be in school more than two days a week. He believes that, with proper funding, schools would be able to open safely. “The ‘richest country in the world’ can barely hold it together,” he said. “How can we allow our schools to be so underfunded?”
One high school teacher, who did not want her name used, had been reconciled to the hybrid in-person and online model she suspected would be coming. But she was astonished to learn at the meeting that the online academy would be relying entirely on the Zoom lessons from the in-school cohorts, seemingly limiting teachers’ in-person options to activities that translate well into videoconferencing. If in-person activities need to accommodate the Zoom interface, she wondered what in-person advantages remain.
She also expressed frustration with the administration’s frequently emailing the community on Friday afternoons, and their poor communication with teachers in general. “There’s no communication to teachers [that acknowledges us as] stakeholders in these events,” she said.
Another teacher, who also did not want to be identified, said he and many of his colleagues are extremely concerned about safety. “I don’t just mean for us,” he said. “Even young people are at more risk than we would have thought.” He said he was waiting to see the “nuanced details” of the district’s plan before evaluating it.
Parent Heather Femine started a private Facebook group in early July for parents to discuss reopening concerns, options, and feelings. “I thought, if I was very lucky, I’d get 50-75 interested participants,” she said. “But in 20 minutes, there were over 200 members!”
Femine believes the administration is “trying their best to accommodate all situations.” She notes that families are working to come up with creative solutions. For example, many parents plan to share childcare and supervision of remote learning.
“It gives the opportunity for high school students, should they be interested, in watching over these pods while caregivers work,” she said.
Creative solutions were also on the mind of Diane Anderson, associate professor and chair of the educational studies department at Swarthmore College. Anderson taught in public schools for 10 years and was a school administrator for an additional 10. She advocated rethinking what education looks like.
“Be more locally resourceful about all the other things that could be learned during this time period,” she suggested. “Which would include coping.” Also daily walks, meals at home, hikes in the woods, playing in the backyard. “We live pretty long lives right now,” she said, which means that kids can afford to have their paths delayed for a year or two.
Anderson worries about kids who live in communities with fewer resources than WSSD. But she is less worried about children in Swarthmore, Rutledge, and Nether Providence. “I think, for the most part, our kids are going to be fine,” she said.
School reopening slide presentations are available on the district website at swat.ink/WSSD-board-info. Go to “meetings,” then “July 20,” then “view the agenda,” then scroll down to find pdfs.
The next board meeting will be Monday, August 17, at 7 p.m. To watch it live or afterwards, go to WSSD’s YouTube Channel.
To submit comments to be read at the board meeting, call 610-892-3470, ext. 1102, and leave a phone message of no more than three minutes. Phoned-in comments must include the commenter’s name, full address, and phone number.
