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Date: 12/16/2020
SOUTH HADLEY – The South Hadley School Committee met on the evening of Dec. 8 where a number of topics were discussed, including the addition of a new cohort integrating into schools. With that said, on Dec. 11, interim Superintendent Diana Bonneville announced that the number of district staff needing to quarantine had increased, resulting in the need to return to remote learning across the district.
Bonneville began the meeting with an update regarding the number of cases of COVID-19 in the district. She said she had learned that day two in-person individuals that had tested positive for COVID-19. While she said the cases were at the Plains Elementary School and the Mosier Elementary School, Bonneville did not specify if those who contracted the virus were students or staff.
She said, as of the meeting, there had been a total of nine people that had tested positive for the virus. She said the total included both students and adults, as well as those who were remote as well as in-person. At the Plains school she said nine people were currently quarantining. This, she said, had posed “an operation challenge to staffing issues.”
“We can’t meet the needs of students right now at Plains, so I would propose that for Plains we go remote until after vacation, either the beginning of January, Jan. 4, whatever, but I know that just for the next week and a half just before the December break we absolutely cannot justify meeting the status quo of essential workers,” she said.
The discussion for returning hybrid for Plains comes a little less than a week prior to additional grade levels returning to in-person learning. School Committee Chair Kyle Belanger said the news was discouraging, but he felt strongly that the other schools in the district could continue on with the hybrid plans adding additional cohorts and the outbreak was a project specific to the Plains school.
Bonneville said at Mosier there had only been one positive case of COVID-19 with no pending tests. She said should they decide to bring back the childcare cohort at the school they would need “all staff back who work there.” At the middle school, Bonneville said two people had tested positive with one of those individuals being remote. This, she said, would mean “few few” additional staff would need to return to working in-person.
When committee member Allyson Garcia asked Bonneville how many cases were at the high school, she said there had been four cases, but they had all been in the remote community. Vice chair Allison Schlachter asked for clarification around the data at the Plains School regarding if the transmission was within the building. Bonneville said while there had only been a single positive case at the time of the meeting, there were nine people, including some staff members who had been forced to quarantine as a result of the positive case. However, should another student test positive for COVID-19, Bonneville said that would result in another “six to eight additional faculty that’s going to have to quarantine.”
“That’s the problem, it’s not that there’s positive cases, it’s that they’re pending and in quarantine,” she said.
Teacher Scott Beaulieu served as a voice for the teacher’s union and made a brief statement. He said that South Hadley was one of the few towns in Hampshire County that had yet to turn red based on the state’s metrics and that cases were continuing to rise in the Commonwealth. “The communities around us are on fire with COVID right now, we have students and staff coming from those districts and those areas,” he said. “I have many concerns about sending anyone back into our buildings.”
He said his concern with regard to sending additional staff into the buildings stemmed from several reasons including there not being a current air quality assessment, which he said the union had been asking for since July. Additionally, he said he was concerned about the cases being on the rise. He said when district decided not to host a graduation the positivity rate was at 1 percent, when they decided to close the schools for 45 days in August the district had a positivity rate of 2 percent, but based on the metrics for Dec. 20 the positivity rate was 2.41 percent on the newly released metrics.
“We have tripled the cases per daily rate and we’re at 1.48 a day and we were at 1.40 when we closed the schools on the old metrics. That concerns us,” he said. “It concerns me that we’re mixing cohorts with these new students going into the building and then those groups will be mixing with our hybrid students eventually. We have teachers that are across both cohorts.”
Beaulieu said teachers were also concerned about the conditions in which the students were learning in and the staff were working in. He said while the heat was working there were windows open in the schools in December, making it cold and said it was only going to get colder. Additionally, he said based on CDC guidelines air purifier filters should be cleaned daily, and they weren’t currently being done. Lastly, he voiced his concern about returning to school on Jan. 4, 2021 following the holiday break and feared the break could result in a significant spread of COVID-19.
Following member Charles Miles’ presentation of current state data, Bonneville said the district had two companies come in “and spent over $100,000 and the ventilation systems are working to the maximum capacity.” She said, “There are no air quality reports that you’re going to get and there’s no company on Earth that’s going to certify that a building has great air quality during a time of COVID.”
However she said she had reached out to a company to see if it was possible to get a report regarding the air exchange rates in the schools. “The air exchange isn’t going to change the quality of our HVAC system,” she said.
Schlachter questioned what would need to happen for the Plains School to reopen their doors prior to the upcoming December break. Bonneville said it was difficult to say at this time due to how many people were required to be at home due to the mandatory quarantine period after exposure. Bonneville said, again, that her recommendation was, regardless of what happened with the Plains School, that the childcare cohort be brought back for the Mosier, middle and high schools. Additionally, she said part of her recommendation was increasing the staff at the Mosier School to be “all teachers and all support staff, unless there’s a leave that can be granted.” She said, “Pretty much all hands on deck.”
She added that they would not need any additional staff back at the high school, and only a few additional staff would be required to return to the middle school. Bonneville said should the committee vote to bring back the childcare cohort, there would be 75 students attending school in person at Mosier.
Member Allyson Garcia then made a motion to vote on the returning of the childcare cohort to the middle and high school as of Monday, Dec. 14, which was seconded by Miles. Beaulieu then asked when the time would be to decide to shut down the schools. “There are school districts that are shutting it down with positivity rates that are less than what we have, and we’re bringing more people in. What’s going to be the number, I really would like to know that. I really would like to hear that from somebody, what is the number that we’re working on here,” he said. “Charles’ numbers said we went up over 200 percent in, what, two weeks, a week.We’re going in the wrong direction. Again, my opinion. I need to leave here today knowing that there’s going to be a situation where there’s going to be a time when we put the community, the whole community, schools, daycares, the supermarket, everybody, the entire community in our sights here.”
Garcia said she was becoming “more and more concerned with the kids that have been home since March,” and she felt it was “ridiculous that we’re faced with this choice.” She said, “There’s no good choice.”
The committee then discussed what to do regarding the Mosier School. Bonneville said 85 percent of the staff at Mosier was already working in person and adding a new cohort would add just 10 new staff members to the building. In total, with the new cohort there would be 57 new people in the building. In total, there would be 143 people in the school. Ultimately the motion passed to add the childcare cohort to the middle and high school beginning on Dec. 14. All members except Miles voted in favor of the motion.
Chair, Kyle Belanger, clarified the number of people that are typically in the building pre-COVID, which was said to be about 490. The committee said 143 people in Mosier was about 29 percent of its population in a normal year. Belanger outlined the possibilities before the School Committee, which included adding no new cohorts, adding the childcare cohort and keeping staffing exactly as it is or adding the childcare cohort with additional staff. Adding the cohort with no staff, however, would be difficult Bonneville said and Miles pointed out that should the committee go that route classroom sizes would increase.
After more than two hours of discussion and some disagreement, a motion was made by Garcia to send the childcare cohort back to Mosier on Dec. 14 with 10 additional staff members. All members of the committee voted in favor of the motion except Miles, ultimately passing the motion. The committee then voted on a motion to endorse Bonneville’s recommendation to move the Plains School to remote through the holiday break, which passed unanimously.
However, on Dec. 11 in a letter sent home to parents, students and staff in the district, Bonneville announced that the number of district staff needing to quarantine had increased, resulting in the need to return to remote learning across the district. The next steps for the district and the number of COVID-19 cases will be discussed at the School Committee meeting on Jan. 4, 2021.