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Date: 2/1/2021
GRANBY– The Granby School Committee came together for a special meeting on the evening of Jan. 26 where they discussed the filling of a vacant School Committee seat and the district’s return to in-person learning.
The meeting began with public comment, where two parents voiced their questions and concerns regarding the postponed delayed return of students for in-person learning due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Member Jennifer Bartosz then went on to acknowledge chair Emre Evren, who’s attendance at the meeting marked the end of his time serving on the School Committee after almost three terms.
“You were an excellent mentor and I appreciate all the help and guidance. You’re leaving enormous shoes to fill and I hope that I can do the job justice,” said member Jennifer Bartosz.
Evren said it was his “privilege” and he enjoyed “every minute” his work on the committee throughout the years. However, he said, “This is important work and I appreciate that you are all here on this committee. And I know that you, Jenn, will do a great job and I trust that this committee will be doing great things going forward.”
Bartosz, who was taking over as chair for Evren, then began the discussion of finding a replacement for his position. She said to fill the vacant seat that Evren would be leaving, interested candidates would need to be voted on by both the Select Board and the School Committee. Bartosz said, essentially, “what we need to do is have some people that are interested to fill out the reminder of the term, which would be until May, assuming town elections happen at the correct time.”
At the time of the meeting, she said there were three individuals that had expressed interest in serving on the School Committee’s vacant seat. However, member Audrey Siudak said since they were officially announcing the posting they should wait to announce the names of interested individuals. Ultimately, after some discussion, the committee decided they would take the names of any interested candidates before the Select Board on Feb. 1 to vote on who would fill the vacant seat.
The committee then moved on to discuss the district’s reopening plan. Interim Superintendent Carol Hepworth said the last time they discussed the returning phases was Dec. 15 and the committee had voted on when the seventh and eighth grades would return to in- person learning. She said it was also decided during the same meeting when the second grade would return. At the time of the meeting, Hepworth said that high need students who lived within the district had returned to in-person learning on Jan. 25. She said they needed to look at when students in pre-K, kindergarten, first grade, seventh grade, eighth grade and additional high need students who they had already voted on would return to in-person learning. However, she said the committee now needed to decide when second grade as well as other additional grades would return to in-person learning.
Both members Audrey Siudak and Jennifer Mallettte said they felt strongly that the kids needed to be back in school, but also emphasized the need for the community to be doing their part and keeping everyone safe. Suidak said, “The community does need to be doing their best effort to keep us out of the red. We’re not red because we’re staying home and staying safe like we’re supposed to be. Obviously there is a spread going on and that makes people nervous.”
Evren said the decision wasn’t just about the students and they had been doing their best to “safeguard the community as a whole including our students, teachers and everybody else.” William Lataille, principal of the East Meadow School, gave a brief presentation on how many days were left in the school year and how many in-person days each grade would have depending on when they began the phased-in hybrid plan for each grade. Additionally Lataille explained that there would be five minutes in between spaced out lunches and no students would be sitting in the same seats. Additionally, when students were eating lunch in their classroom, students would eat from their assigned seats that would be spaced at least six feet apart and facing the same direction, at least one window in each classroom would be open, and students would wash their hands before and after lunch.
School nurse leader and registered nurse, Nancy Jenks, again emphasized the need to stop community spread when asked for her opinion on returning to in-person learning. Bartosz asked what the in-person transmission numbers had been while students had been inside the building prior to the town being categorized as red. Jenks confirmed that there had been no cases of transmission from within the building. “All of the positive cases and exposures at that point, and even now, all of the positive cases have occurred from being community acquired, meaning they were not acquired being in the building,” Jenks said. She said since the beginning of the school year the district had 13 positive cases.
After much discussion, the committee decided the best plan to move forward would be to bring back two grade levels every two weeks once they had been designated as a yellow community for two weeks. Ultimately, the committee agreed that as long as the town was in the yellow students in special populations, pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, seventh grade, eighth grade and special needs students at the high school would return to in-person learning on Feb. 22. On March 9, students in grade three, grade four, grade nine and grade 10 would return to in-person learning. On March 22, fifth graders, sixth graders, eleventh graders twelfth graders would return to in-person learning.
The reopening plan was approved unanimously, pending the town being in the yellow category with the ability to revisit the plan at any time should they need to. The committee will meet again for their regularly scheduled School Committee meeting next on Feb. 2.