Board Approves Elementary School Reopening Plan

Elementary schools in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District will return to something closer to normal in coming weeks. 

On Monday, the school board voted unanimously to approve a revised School Reopening Health and Safety Plan. Under the plan, Nether Providence, Swarthmore-Rutledge, and Wallingford elementary schools will reopen for 4½ days of weekly in-person instruction beginning either March 18 or April 5, depending on community COVID rates. Other new aspects of the plan, including a change to quarantine requirements, take effect immediately. 

Families who prefer to keep their children out of school buildings can use the district’s Online Academy.

Bringing all students who want in-person instruction back into buildings at the same time will require reducing current 6-foot distancing requirements to 3 feet for students. Staff will still be required to stay 6 feet away from students and from each other. 

Many community members and teachers have expressed concern about reduced distancing, saying it poses too great a danger of in-school COVID spread.

In making a case for returning to full-time in-person instruction, board president David Grande (who is also Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania) pointed to recent studies indicating that schools can reopen safely with mitigation strategies in place. He also stressed the educational, social, and emotional costs to students of missing in-person school. “Those costs are greater 12 months into the pandemic,” he said. “It is time to move forward.”

Grande cast the conditional reopening, with its two possible start dates, as a compromise. “It speaks to those who want kids in full time as quickly as possible, and those who want to go a little bit slower,” he said.

Under the plan, if either county or school district seven-day COVID rates fall below 100 cases per 100,000 residents on or around March 5, schools will reopen on March 18. “All the signs point to us clearly heading in that direction,” Grande said, noting a recent decline in case rates. COVID levels in the county are currently 109 per 100,000 people over a seven-day period, according to the Chester County Health Department. 

If case rates do not fall sufficiently by March 5, schools will reopen on April 5, the first day after spring break. By early April, Grande explained, the district’s nascent testing program will have been up and running for several weeks, adding an important mitigation strategy to the current mix of masking, distancing, hygiene, and contact tracing. Testing has been the “missing piece of the puzzle” that will make it possible to open by April even if the case rate does not fall as far as expected, he said. 

Weighing New Guidance

In concluding that the district can safely reopen, Grande said he considered new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s PolicyLab, and the Chester County Health Department, as well as other studies. 

Superintendent Lisa Palmer reviewed recommendations from these sources during the superintendent’s report.

On February 12, the CDC released a new operational strategy for reopening schools. The new report does not require 6-foot distancing, although it advocates maintaining that standard “to the greatest extent possible.” 

The report also finds it “critical” to open schools as soon as possible. 

Grande noted that the CDC report is directed to all schools in the country, many of which cannot implement mitigation strategies as well as Wallingford-Swarthmore can. He reported that a recent interview with CDC director Rochelle Walensky indicated that her institution’s guidance is cautious because only an estimated 60% of students nationwide wear masks appropriately in schools. “That is certainly not us,” Grande said.

Palmer noted that a February 17 PolicyLab blog post recommended that every school consider its community’s “unique context” when deciding when and how to reopen. 

Palmer also quoted a February 19 letter to Delaware and Chester County school superintendents from Chester County Health Department Director Jeanne Franklin. Franklin’s letter acknowledges that districts have successfully layered mitigation measures. Thus, she wrote, the health department “supports in-person learning through reduced physical distancing.”

Several board members indicated that deciding how to vote was wrenching. “I have had many sleepless nights,” Kelly Wachtman said. 

What Families Think

The administration recently surveyed elementary school families’ attitudes about implementing full in-person instruction with reduced distancing. 

1,097 of the 1,645 district families responded, Director of Instructional Technology Nora Wheeler said. She indicated that 62% of families currently opting for in-person learning, and 9% of families currently enrolled in the Online Academy, favor or strongly favor returning to school in mid-March. If the reopening date is pushed to April, these percentages rise to 69% of in-person cohort families and 17% of Online Academy families.

1,021 families, or 93% of respondents, said they would remain in their current modality if schools return to full-time in-person instruction.

Of the 72 families who would elect to change their modality, 38 (53 students) would move from the Online Academy to in-person learning, and 34 families (44 students) would change from in-person to online.

Distancing, Testing, and Quarantine

Under the new plan, all students would stay at least 3 feet apart from each other except for lunch, snack, and mask breaks, according to Director of Student Services Gina Ross. At those times, they will remain 6 feet apart.

Director of Operations Ferg Abbott reported that desks will generally be placed 3½ - 4 feet apart, depending on the number of students.

Ross reported that the district’s rapid testing program will be implemented on or around March 1. It will initially test staff on a voluntary basis, then expand to include students who cannot wear masks and perhaps others. Ross also indicated that the district hopes to have a more accurate, PCR test available soon.

School board student representative Mira Patel reports on how teachers and students are celebrating Black History Month and preparing for Black Lives Matter at School.

New Chester County Health Department quarantine guidelines will be implemented immediately. Asymptomatic students who have been exposed to someone testing positive will no longer have to quarantine for 14 days. Instead, exposure quarantine will end after 10 days, or 7 if the exposed individual receives a negative COVID test.

Boys Basketball

One immediate impact of the quarantine change is that the Strath Haven High School boys basketball team can compete in the Central League championships if team members test negative for COVID. The team has been quarantining since exposure to a COVID-positive player during a recent game. 

The next board meeting will be Monday, March 8, at 7 p.m., in the Strath Haven Middle School library, 200 S. Providence Road, Wallingford. If you prefer to watch at home, go to WSSD’s YouTube channel.