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Date: 4/26/2021
SOUTH HADLEY – Some parents in South Hadley are expressing concerns after high schoolers attending the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts (PVPA) remain in a full remote learning model.
In a statement submitted to the PVPA board during the public comment portion of their April 13 meeting, Trish Hede, who is parent of a ninth grade student, expressed her frustration with the school’s plan for high school students to remain learning remotely. She said that communication from the school had been lacking in what was already a difficult year.
“This has been a difficult, unprecedented, isolated year. One in which robust communication would have been not only appreciated, but extremely helpful and community building,” she said. Hede, who serves as a member of the parent teacher organization (PTO), also has a spouse who serves on the School Committee and a daughter who serves on the student council.
“As a member of the PTO with a spouse on the school committee and a daughter on the student council, if I feel ‘out of the loop’ I can’t imagine how other families may feel,” she said.
She went on to compare her experience with PVPA to the experience she had with her other daughter who attends school in Easthampton Public Schools. Hede explained that since March began, her family had “received 14 emails from the school superintendent, 10 emails from the middle school principal and countless robocalls with information updating families on plans for her school and the district, progress and deadlines being met, goals set by the school board, the transition to hybrid in-person learning as we had been completely remote until March 8 and now the impending transition to full time in-person schooling.”
She then went on to say she felt it was imperative to get all students, not just middle schoolers, back to in-person learning as soon as possible and felt this was not a priority to PVPA’s administration or board. “Getting back to in-person learning does not seem to be a priority to this administration or board. In a different phase of this pandemic I wholeheartedly would have agreed with you, but now that approach is no longer appropriate,” she said.
Hede questioned why the administration had not begun planning for the guidance from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) regarding the return to in person learning for high school students, which was anticipated to be released in April. Based on her knowledge, Hede said the school “can safely function at 70 percent capacity.” This, she said, would be “roughly 280 students at a given time.” Should all 130 mandated middle school students return, Hede said that would leave “a cohort of approximately 270 high school students if all choose to return.”
“The school could very easily, safely accommodate two cohorts of 135 high school students each,” she said. Hede said this was “well below the max of 150 [students] that could safely return” to daily in person learning with middle school students and suggested that the school could return high school students to in person learning with a “Mon/Tues, Thurs/Fri schedule, or a week on/week off schedule.”
In her closing comments, Hede said the performing arts schools had classes in the field that did not translate well to a remote model, “no matter how good the intentions or hard work provided.” She said, “I know our school faces different challenges, but that doesn’t mean we should take the easy way out, that’s not the example I want to set for my student. It should mean we come up with unique solutions.”
However, Brent Nielsen, who serves as the interim executive director and the director of student services, said the school was initially planning for a hybrid return of all students when DESE released the mandate that forced middle school students back to full time in person learning. Prior to the mandate, he said “just under 10 percent” of their students who had been identified as high needs had been learning in person.
Nielsen, who took over as interim executive director on Dec. 1, said during that week he conducted meetings and the staff began preparations to bring students back. “I met with our union in the first week and we began planning for bringing students back in. We did a survey of staff and families to determine what the interest was and what obstacles were present for planning,” he said. DESE’s announcement came shortly after this process began, Nielsen said.
“It made it more challenging to bring in high schoolers because we don’t have the space to bring in middle schoolers and high schoolers five days a week,” he said. “So we shifted focus to getting middle schoolers in to comply with [DESE?Education Commissioner Jeffrey] Riley’s expectation.”
Another challenge Nielsen said when planning for the return of students was the space constraints due to the layout of the building. “Our building wasn’t built as a school building, it was built as an office building. Classrooms can hold 18 to 20 [students] when we can put them as close together, and those are pre-pandemic numbers,” he said.
Additionally, he said that the “hallways are just six feet wide, making it virtually impossible” to safely facilitate students passing each other.
“We don’t have a cafeteria, so we eat our meals outside, we’re hoping for good weather,” he said. Nielsen added that to accommodate students learning in person they rearranged their rooms, took out any excess furniture and spaced desks three feet apart.
Ultimately, he said the rooms would hold “10 or 12 students” with some classes able to accommodate a larger class size of about 15 students. Other accommodations the school is planning to make for in-person learning include setting up tents to host classes outdoors. “We have three tents set up, and are expecting a fourth to be set up. We’ll be using it for breakfast and arts classes,” he said. Classes such as “singing, dancing [and] wind instruments” require more space than typical classes.
“We’re a charter school. We’re also a performing arts school. Most of our students take two to three arts classes a semester. Our programming requires more space than most public schools,” he said. Additionally, he said that they were also working with a vendor “to install outdoor WiFi antennas to stream our classrooms,” being held outside to students that are still learning remotely.
Nielsen said that of their middle school population returning to full in person learning on April 26, “close to 80 percent” of middle schoolers would be returning to the building. He said out of 140 students, about 100 had chosen to return to in-person learning full-time. In addition to students, he said that “any teachers who teach middle school” including arts instructors would return to the building as well.
In response to parent complaints, he said that just a small portion of parents had expressed being upset that their high school students hadn’t returned to in person learning yet. “Honestly, it’s a relatively small percentage of parents who are upset that our students aren’t back,” he said.
Nielsen said in a survey to families, it was “roughly half [of high school students] that indicated they would return” to in person learning.“Of the half that would return, it’s roughly 25 percent that are upset,” he said. “A lot of people want to compare us to larger school districts that have more resources and multiple buildings.”
He commended teachers who had been “creative” and “rethinking how they create the arts.” Ultimately, he said that teachers and administration “are looking forward to seeing as many students back.”