Winchendon School District Begins Working on Re-opening Plan for Fall, 2020
In response to the guideline document released by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) last month, Winchendon Public Schools has begun the daunting task of preparing to reopen schools for classes in a way that meets both the education and safety needs of all students.
On July 1, some 60 school staff members, parents and other concerned persons met for an initial meeting to discuss implementing the state guidelines and plan the structure for the committees which will focus on specific areas to be addressed.
In their meeting on Thursday, July 2, the Winchendon School Committee discussed the extent of the challenge presented for the schools, especially in light of the fact that no one can be sure what the situation will be with regard to the pandemic by September, two months in the future.
"I want to know, realistically speaking, how much flexibility is there in terms of the district developing its guidelines for opening, as opposed to what the state is going to mandate?" asked School Committee Chair Greg Vine.
Winchendon Schools Superintendant Joan Landers responded, "The Commission is very clear in their guard rails, so we have to work within those guard rails. There's certain things that every district has to do..how you implement it, there can be some variations. How we implement it in Winchendon is going to be different than how it's implemented in a larger school district."
Ms. Landers stated that every staff person is looking at every aspect of the plan "every minute of the day." For example, she had just met with the director of Food Service around questions of serving meals. "We don't want [the children] to have bagged lunch every day, and not have hot meals," Ms. Landers said. There may have to be more lunch periods to spread out students going to pick up lunch and bring it back to the classroom. Students won't be able to punch in their lunch code on a keypad, so a safe method for lunch payment will have to be worked out.
School Committee member Larry Murphy pointed out that the guidelines allow a great deal of flexibility for school districts to meet them in ways that best serve their individual needs. Each school building in Winchendon will need a plan "and it could look different from building to building." He added, "parents should understand the state was wise enough to leave the details to each community, so they could structure them for the students' needs and the parents' needs and the staffing needs. So that's a great thing."
School Committee member Karen Kast expanded on the challenges presented to the district immediately. She pointed out that five different plans need to be turned into the state. Along with the plans for full re-opening, all-remote learning, and a "hybrid" mix of partial re-opening and remote learning, districts must develop plans for special needs students and English Language Learners (ELL) students.
Ms. Kast added that she did "an informal poll" of teachers she knew, asking whether they, as staff, felt safe returning to school. She asked if Winchendon Schools planned to poll its teachers and staff and gather their feedback. Ms. Landers affirmed that this will be done. "This is about all our students," Ms. Kast said, "this is about whether we can send them back, and send them back safely, and make sure that they're being effectively educated."
"These guidelines weren't written in the best interests of our students or our communities," Ms. Kast went on. "These were written in the best interests of business and corporations...schools are treated like day cares. The schools are being re-opened in order to make sure that parents can go back to work, which god knows is very important, but I want to make sure that we're doing what's right for our students, our staff, our community...I don't want our staff members or our students going into a situation that's going to be detrimental to them."
Ms. Kast questioned the assumptions about low virus transmission among children in the guidelines, stating that they're based on flimsy evidence. She pointed out that some parents are stating that they won't tolerate their child wearing a mask all day, asking what is the district's legal obligation in that case? Does the school not admit a child without a mask? Some children can't wear a mask; some staff members may not be able to wear a mask.
Murdock Middle School Principal Jessica Vezina reported that the curriculum plans being developed have multiple levels of complexity in order to include all the different needs of students at all grade levels in each school.
Director of Pupil Services Suzanne Michel described the complications around the face mask requirement--for example, the need for teachers to wear clear face coverings to accommodate deaf/hard of hearing or special needs students who need to see the teacher's face and mouth. She affirmed that the focus groups help the district grapple with these complexities because with so many people contributing, many issues are brought up that might otherwise be missed. "I think by the end of July, we'll have a much better and much more comprehensive system," she said.
Ms. Landers described the importance of the students' health, suggesting that the school might team up with health care professionals who would be able to handle any incidents of a child testing positive or getting sick while in school.
"I totally, totally agree," Ms. Landers said, "that it's really, really important, to the leadership team, and to me, that the students get the best education. It isn't just about going back to school. It isn't about doing just remote learning. We need to make sure they get a quality education, because this is a time in their life that is important. And we don't know when this is going to end."
Winchendon School Committee Passes MASC Resolutions for COVID-19 Funding and Anti-Racism Measures
At the July 2, 2020 meeting of the Winchendon School Committee, Chairperson Greg Vine told the Committee that Deborah Davis, the President of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC), sent a request out to local School Committees requesting that they pass two resolutions. The first concerns expenses related to COVID-19, including supplies and equipment needed to help schools re-open safely. The second is a response to issues of racism, equity and diversity that have moved to center stage in recent weeks.
The first resolution, related to COVID-19 funding, passed unanimously without discussion.
After the anti-racism resolution was read, School Committee member Felicia Nurmsen commented, "I think that's great, what we've said, but there's no action, there aren't really any actionable items that are included in that. I do think that as a district there are things that we could do to be more diverse, particularly in our hiring practices, and ensuring that we have our own goals, as far as percentage of teaching staff, and percentage of staff in general, and administrative staff. I don't think that we do that now, but that is something that again, it's actionable, and it shows that we do have a commitment to that."
Winchendon Schools Superintendant Joan Landers said that the district, along with others, is working with Boston College's Lynch Leadership Academy on issues of diversity in hiring. The principals attended a three-day training, and central office staff will also be getting training. Other districts in the region are all working toward that goal, Ms. Landers stated.
Ms. Nurmsen argued that "It's not actionable, though. There's no goal there...it's not like saying that a certain percentage of our staff will be diverse, that we would use diverse recruitment...to build our pipeline of diverse candidates. I would love to see us incorporate something like that."
School Committee member Larry Murphy suggested that this would be good topic for the School Committee's retreat in August, and Ms. Nurmsen agreed. "I do think we need to have some real goals as relates to diversity, and how we go about attaining those goals," she added.
"It's all about recruiting," Mr. Murphy said. "We don't have a great resource of diverse candidates. The trick is going to be to market ourselves to teachers of color, and administrators of color, and get them to come here."
"We also need to address how we're going to address this in the student population in school," School Committee member Karen Kast said. "The resolution says we're going to discuss authors, and so on...not only address it in that regard, but also in regard to, how are we addressing racial [issues]."
The anti-racism resolution passed unanimously. The text of both resolutions appears below.
