By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
2 in-person, 3 remote days for Somers Point
SOMERS POINT — Students in the Somers Point School District will begin the 2020-21 school year with a hybrid schedule of both in-person and remote instruction.
The district’s plan includes five four-hour days of instruction, with Wednesdays as fully virtual learning days for all students and staff to allow for cleaning of the New York Avenue School, Dawes Avenue School and Jordan Road School.
In-person learning experiences will have the students separated into two cohorts, A and B. Students in cohort A will attend school in person Monday and Tuesday and will work virtually Wednesday through Friday. Those in cohort B will attend school in person Thursday and Friday and work virtually Monday through Wednesday.
Prekindergarten students will arrive at 8:30 a.m. and be dismissed at 12:45 p.m.
Students in kindergarten through third grade will arrive at 8:45 and be dismissed at 1 p.m. The day will begin at 7:45 a.m. and end at noon for students in grades fourth to eighth.
The district is taking precautions to ensure the health and safety of students and staff, including requiring face coverings for all when inside the buildings. Disposable masks will be provided but personal masks are preferred.
Students will be encouraged to wash their hands frequently, with scheduled breaks to do so, and hand-sanitizing stations will be set up in key locations such as entry points, classrooms and the cafeteria.
Plans also call for limiting students’ exposure to others, both inside their cohort and otherwise. Desks will be set up at least 6 feet apart and teachers will move between classrooms instead of students.
Students will be discouraged from sharing any food and supplies and will have to keep all personal items at their desks as no lockers will be available.
Accommodations will be made for high-risk and special education students.
Personal Protection Equipment will be provided for custodians, nurses, teachers and staff whose job responsibilities include extensive direct contact with students.
Busing will be provided for students who qualify based on distance from their school, with social distancing and mask requirements in place.
Masks must be worn by everyone entering buildings, walking in the halls and when not 6 feet apart in the classrooms, where social distancing will be in place.
Nurses will be available at all three buildings for pre-entry screening, providing ongoing assessment of staff and students presenting with symptoms, monitoring the isolation room for sick students, assisting with contact tracing and meeting time-mandated screening and immunization requirements.
Playgrounds will remain closed and teachers will be encouraged to hold outdoor movement breaks. Students will be urged to wear comfortable clothing to participate in all activities without the need to change. Physical education classes will be held outside when weather permits.
The district has submitted the CARES grant to the Department of Education and has received funding for PPE supplies for students and staff, cleaning supplies, Chromebooks and iPads for every student, substitute custodians for additional cleaning and Wifi hotspots for virtual learning. Computers will travel back and forth with students daily.
The district will be providing Grab and Go Meals, with all meals delivered to classrooms for distribution. Breakfast will be eaten in the classroom and lunch will be distributed before student dismissal to be taken home for consumption.
Meals for all-virtual participants and those in the B cohort will be distributed by the district’s school safety officers and cafeteria staff from 9 to 11 a.m. Mondays at all three schools. Virtual students will receive five breakfasts and five lunches for the week. Cohort B students will receive three breakfasts and three lunches on Mondays and the remainder of their meals in school.
Cohort A members will receive three breakfasts and three lunches on Tuesdays before dismissal for the remainder of the week and receive the rest of their meals in school.
The YMCA Child Care Program will be available at all three buildings for in-person students and virtual students. Virtual student day care is available on a first-come, first-served basis for working families.
There will be no athletics during the fall trimester or while the state remains in Phase 2 of its reopening plan. When the state enters Stage 3 of the “Road to Recovery Plan,” the district will reintroduce athletics and activities in a virtual or cohort capacity.
Linwood students in school two days a week
LINWOOD — Students in the Linwood School District will begin the 2020-21 school year with a hybrid schedule of in-person, remote and virtual instruction as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the country.
The district’s back-to-school plan is called Restart with H.E.A.R.T. — Health, Environment, Academics, Relationships, Teamwork.
“Each of these words filtered through our committee discussions and planning so we felt it was necessary to use these guiding principles for design,” Superintendent Brian Pruitt stated in a letter to parents.
Students will have two days of in-person instruction, two days of remote instruction and a virtual instruction day.
Pruitt stated the administration used feedback from its Return to School Teams to craft the plan. Subcommittees focused on health and safety, academics and social-emotional mental wellness.
“Through open communication, crowd-sourcing ideas and teamwork, we were able to review survey data, highlight our expertise in a variety of areas and capitalize on our committees’ structure to inform decision-making,” Pruitt stated.
He also said the plan is necessarily a work in progress.
“The current public health matter is changing, evolving and shifting each day and week. Our planning must remain fluid and flexible, and it involves scenarios that range and shift from a hybrid model to a virtual model and to a fully open model.
“We have worked diligently to meet the needs of our students while threading through the design the ability to shift between models if the situation changes due to health-related circumstances,” the letter stated.
Under the plan, students will be split into two cohorts — Blue and Gold. Families with siblings will be placed in the same cohort to assist in planning.
Students will be attending in person two days a week — Monday-Tuesday for the Blue group and Thursday-Friday for the Gold group — and participate remotely the other two days, with Wednesday being a fully virtual day. The Blue group will begin classes Tuesday, Sept. 8, while the Gold group will begin Thursday, Sept. 11.
“This design allows for in-person instruction for full days with our students. It provides academic consistency with back-to-back days of instruction and maximizes our contract with teachers and students in the cohorts. The design also aligns with health and safety considerations, providing a window of time for each cohort to work remotely so proactive responses for any health-related situation that may arise can be made,” Pruitt stated.
There are some exceptions, including preschool, kindergarten and special education students, who will be in person four days a week. Kindergartners will have a virtual learning experience Wednesdays, while preschool students will not. As required by the state, there will be an all-virtual model for those who do not want their children in the buildings.
Pruitt said the schedule is fluid as well and must take into account holidays and contracted days off for teachers and staff.
“The school calendar will be reviewed throughout the year as we enter into specific months to maximize instructional time to the greatest extent possible,” Pruitt said.
The in-person schedule will be 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Seaview Elementary School and 8:15 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. at Belhaven Middle School. More details about schedules will be forthcoming from the district.
The district’s plan also addresses the health and safety of students. There will be daily health screenings, students and staff will be encouraged to wash their hands with soap and water throughout the day and scheduled times will be included for this purpose.
Hand sanitizer will be available in all classrooms, at entry points and at locations throughout each campus.
Students and staff will be required to wear masks during the day. Mask breaks will be built into the schedule in both buildings. The district has purchased masks as well as other Personal Protective Equipment for use in classrooms, such as gloves, face shields for teachers to use in addition to masks, disinfecting wipes for each room and social distancing signage.
“We encourage students to bring their own face covering/mask; however, we will have masks in the event that a personal one is lost or needed,” Pruitt stated.
The district has created protocols for dealing with anyone who develops symptoms of the coronavirus or who comes into contact with an infected person through coordination with school and community medical personnel and the Atlantic County Department of Health.
“Our response will follow the guidelines provided by the NJ Department of Health and Atlantic County Department of Health,” the letter stated. “As always, if your child is sick, please keep him/her at home.”
Steps will be taken to limit students’ exposure to one another. Each building will use multiple entrances and exits to minimize the volume of students entering the building for arrival/dismissal.
Social distancing measures have been taken in each classroom by spreading desks 6 feet apart and floor locations will be marked to identify appropriate social distancing in specific locations, including areas that will be identified outside buildings at the entrances.
“We have implemented advanced cleaning and disinfecting measures in our buildings in line with recommendations from our product vendors and with other best practices from the CDC and manufacturers,” the letter stated.
Students will be grouped in cohorts and receive all instruction in one classroom to minimize the amount of contact between students, and teachers will move between classrooms.
Preventative maintenance measures will also be undertaken.
“This plan also allows for the required flexibility of increasing our in-person offerings while monitoring the current health situation as the circumstances improve or allow. Clearly, under normal circumstances our goal is to have all of our students and staff in our schools. This is not a normal circumstance,” Pruitt stated.
Northfield students in school 4 days a week
NORTHFIELD — The Northfield Board of Education approved a plan Aug. 6 for students’ return to school, but so far little solid information has been made available to the public.
Superintendent Pete Bretones said via email last week that he was still waiting for the county to approve the plan before sending it to the state Department of Education for its approval.
Board of Education member Angelique Delcher said the district did not want to release information that they later may have to change because the plan did not get approved.
“Until the plan is stamped, nothing will be posted on the website,” she said. “We do not want to retract because it confuses parents,” Delcher said, adding that Bretones is being prudent in waiting.
Delcher said time is getting short but the district can do nothing but wait.
“We are at the two-week mark and just speculating until we get told full steam ahead,” she said.
The plan approved by the school board calls for students to attend school for four half-day sessions each week with a full virtual day on Friday. There will be a morning session (9 a.m. to noon for the elementary school and 8 to 11 a.m. for grades five to eight) and an afternoon session (1 to 4 p.m. for elementary and noon to 3 p.m. for middle school). Students also will have a one-hour synchronous virtual session during which they will have two electives. There also is an all-virtual plan.
Delcher said the morning students would have their one-hour virtual instruction in the afternoon and the afternoon students would have theirs in the morning.
Delcher said the virtual day would be dropped in weeks with fewer than five days. She also said the plan provides the most equitable learning experience since all students would get the same number of days in school even on shortened weeks.
Teachers are scheduled to return to school from Sept. 1-4 for preparation and students are scheduled to return Sept. 8.
During the Zoom meeting Aug. 6 and after, many concerned parents and community members shared their thoughts on the Facebook page Northfield NJ Lounge.
“Praying for all of the parents that will be struggling thru this. Going to be difficult for many households,” Karen Long Nardone wrote.
“Those hours are ridiculous — what if you have kids in both schools — drop one at 8 then go back home to get the 9 am kid? Who made that up?!? Glad my granddaughter goes to St. Joe’s,” Patti Speed Hemberger commented.
“We don’t have 1/2 day jobs!” Sheila DePamphilis wrote.
Kenneth Michael Haney wrote that the plan provides more teacher-to-student instructional time. “Hours for in person instruction are nearly doubled in the half day model. 480 min (full A/b day model) vs 720 min per week in the half day model.”
“I feel so sorry for teachers that have children and I feel these little ones need to get back into some normalcy!!,” Victoria Rich wrote.
Jessica Hanley responded: “the problem is, going to back to school is not going to be ‘normal’ at all. My son wants to go back to school, but his idea of what it was is not what it’s going to be.”
“I have a feeling that no matter what us parents or the super think is best … the Governator is going to strike great vengeance again and cancel school until after Xmas Break,” Ari Fraggia said.
Charlie Brandt commented, “No good scenarios here but this one hurts.”
Dan Boyle has had enough.
“Need to go full day. 5 days a week. Enough already. It’s time to accept that the virus is here. It’s not going anywhere. And our kids not having a sense of normalcy is hurting them,” he wrote.
Board of Education member Kerrie Donovan Marrone said developing the plan took a lot of time and effort.
“We surveyed and worked with all stakeholders to develop a plan we knew was never going to please everyone, and for that I’m sorry. But please know we did our very best and continue to work thru this crisis,” she wrote. “Education isn’t child care but this pandemic has revealed how reliant working families are on public education and its programs and services including meal service. This decision was not easy and honestly it still could change. Everything may end up all virtual so child care will still be an issue. None of this is ideal. There is no one size fits all plan. I’m so sorry things can’t be different, we are all trying so hard. Let’s all work together as we are able and pray we get through this health crisis as safely and positively as possible.”
Kim Shapiro believes no one will be returning to school.
“All this back and forth for what??? All this time spent focusing on a hybrid schedule for what? Do you all really think schools are going to open? How angry is everyone going to be when after all of this our governor tells us schools won’t be opening because it’s too risky and the numbers are on the rise again. (Whether they actually are or not) the focus should be on creating the most efficient virtual program possible because that’s what we’re going to be looking at for the first half of the year. I know it’s not what ANYONE wants to hear but I think it’s what we should all be preparing for,” she wrote.
Asia Rehder was concerned about child care.
“Unfortunately this plan makes it nearly impossible for working parents to continue to work. No employer is going to allow their employee to work 3 hours and then clock out for the day,” she commented.
Jason Yard basically said it’s time to stop whining and start doing.
“This is going to affect everyone just like it has for the last 5-6 months. Every family will have a situation that they have to overcome to make this work in the best possible way. Get over it and start figuring it out. The Board made a decision they felt was in the best interest of the kids, teachers and families. DONE. There will always be families that need more attention due to circumstances with their child. I am sure if you reach out to the school they will work with you to help accommodate those circumstances, if possible. As far as scheduling, it sucks but deal with it. We are the adults. It is our job to deal with these hardships and show our kids life is difficult but as an adult you do what you can in times of difficulty and complaining solves nothing.”
