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Date: 8/10/2020
WESTHAMPTON – The Hampshire Regional School Committees met for a joint meeting on July 30 to discuss their reopening plans. A decision could not be made and no consensus could be reached but each committee indicated they are taking the steps to make the best decision.
Faculty and parents expressed their concerns ranging from the consequences of online learning – good or bad – to health risk of sending kids back full time for in-person learning or through a hybrid model – a combination of in-person and remote learning.
Some spoke on the need for their children to be in a classroom to learn effectively.
A parent of two young boys said that her concern is not socialization, it's education. She shared that her kindergarten student, who was in preschool when the virus broke out, had 30 minute Zoom sessions each day and he told his mother that they were too long for him. She is concerned that her child would not be able to learn in the remote learning style when they expect students to be on Zoom from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. everyday.
"If it is completely remote then it is on my shoulders and we are a household of two working parents, to teach that child and figure out how to teach that child," she said.
Erika Michaud, a third grade teacher at Norris Elementary, expressed that the three options have pros and cons. Michaud would love to be teaching her students in person, but she thinks about those who will be in the far back while she is up front in her instructional zone due to social distancing.
"Their level of engagement is going to be minimal. They are going to have difficulties hearing me, difficulties to being engaged," Michaud said.
Because of social distancing, she has concerns of not being able to pull up a chair next to a student or take a few and sit them down at a table to help them further understand the lesson plan. She believes that the students will be very frustrated that they won't be able to receive the help.
Michaud said that noneducators might not know that back in school does not really mean back in school. The level of instruction and engagement will be different. They are going to spend a lot of time working on COVID protocols, teaching them about masks and washing hands, and how to line up properly for things like lunch time.
"A lot of our time is not going to be instructional time, it's going to be time reminding them safety procedures and protocols," Michaud said.
She advocated for remote or hybrid learning to start with, and working their way up to everyone being back in the building. Michaud said she understands how much it does not work for working families. As she is trying to do Zoom and post work on SeeSaw for her students, she has two children with her during certain days of the week and has to teach them at the same time.
About an hour into the meeting, it was hacked by individuals who introduced themselves to the meeting playing pornography noises, wrote inappropriate things in the chat such as "n***** bois" and asked for the address of Superintendent Aaron Osborne. The hackers made it difficult for themselves to be identified by changing their profile names to those on the committee to pose as them and they even went as far as posing as Zoom technical support in hopes to gain host access to the meeting.
Due to how many hackers there were, in order to keep things under control, school officials had to shut down the chat option which meant shutting down the public speak portion.
Osborne kept checking for more hackers as they kept coming in as he was booting them. Everyone had to be muted unless the host unmuted you himself.
Even with distractions, the focus of the meeting was still present. After the public speaking portion, each committee got the chance to speak amongst each other to decide whether they were ready to vote or not. Each committee decided that they would follow up with separate meetings to further speak with each other and continue to ask for parents thoughts. Each committee said they wish to decide sooner than later so they can inform parents as soon as possible.
An update on school reopening plans will be posted on the schools websites.