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Date: 3/22/2021
GRANBY – The Granby School Committee met for their regularly scheduled meeting on March 16 where a number of items were discussed including elementary-aged students returning to full in-person learning.
The meeting, which was conducted in person and began with an update to the district’s reopening plan. Interim Superintendent Carol Hepworth said she had updated the plan last week with information from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) commissioner Jeff Riley regarding his plans to have all elementary students learning in person five days a week by April 5. She said the district would be working with the “administration, School Committee, our teachers to come to an agreement on how to make that happen.”
Chair of the committee, Jennifer Bartosz, then asked the committee if they just wanted to send back the required group of students in kindergarten through fifth grade or if they wanted to send other grades back to full, in-person learning as well. Committee Member, Jill Pelletier, said it didn’t “make sense not to include sixth grade,” as they attended school in the elementary building as well. It was emphasized that the pre-K was also in the building.
Hepworth said a survey had been sent to families to see which families in the community felt comfortable sending their children back to school for five days a week. Principal of the East Meadow Elementary School, William Latalle, said at the time of the meeting all but nine families had responded to the survey. “As of right now, we have 45 students that want to stay fully remote as of now, we have 332 that want to come back to five days a week full time learning,” he said.
He said the building would have enough room in each classroom to put desks three feet apart. He added that in classrooms that may be bigger or have smaller enrollment they would be putting the desks as far apart as they were able to. “If we can keep them six feet apart, we’ll keep them six feet apart,” he said, “nothing will be less than three-feet apart in the classrooms.”
Lunches, Latalle said, would still be six feet apart. He added that the district had been able to borrow a group of picnic tables from Dufrain Park for both the elementary and high school, which would allow for students to eat outside as well.
Lunches, he explained, would be five minutes shorter and just 20 minutes long, but would only host one grade level at a time, making it faster and easier for the students to be served and eat. “The benefit of doing that is we don’t have to eat in the classrooms,” he said. On days when the weather wasn’t cooperating he said they would use the bleachers in the gym.
When asked about how remote learning would be facilitated, Latalle said while they had just begun conversations about this students would likely be involved in the beginning of a lesson and for the instructional period. After that, he said there would be more of an independent learning period until the next instructional period. He said the district was still exploring additional options to support the remote students including using a paraprofessional to assist the students. When Bartosz asked if remote students would still retain their classroom with the same teacher, Hepworth said there was a possibility for that to change as they’d been instructed by DESE that “in person learning was the focus.”
Stephen Sullivan, the principal for the Granby Junior Senior High School, said a survey was also sent out to families with students attending that building. He said while they had not heard back from all families at the time of the meeting, 60 students chose to attend school remotely and 263 students planned to return to in person learning. He said the district would be following up with families who had not responded to the survey at the time of the meeting.
Ultimately after additional discussion, the committee agreed that students in pre-K through eighth grade should return to full in-person learning on April 5, while students in grades nine through 12 would remain in the hybrid model for the time being until further guidance from DESE was received.
Hepworth, in her superintendent update, recognized two parents who had volunteered their time to schedule vaccinations for teachers. She said that as of the meeting, five teachers had reached out to at least one of the parents and all five had been able to get their COVID-19 vaccine scheduled. At the time of the meeting, Hepworth said of 122-123 staff members, 28 had been fully vaccinated, 10 had received their first vaccine dose and three had notified the district that their appointments had been scheduled to receive the first dose.