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Date: 8/10/2020
SOUTHWICK – The Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School Committee met for a regularly scheduled meeting on July 30 to hear the first draft plan for school reopening in the fall. Their finalized plan was also presented on Aug. 4.
To start the meeting, the committee jumped right into Superintendent Jennifer Willard's presentation for the district's first draft plan for reopening in the fall.
Before beginning the presentation, she thanked district staff for all their work in coming up with the plan and said, "I need to personally thank Jenny Sullivan, Robin Gunn, Amy McLaughlin, Stephen Presnal, Erik Wicander, principals Turmel, Carrier, Saso, and a huge shoutout to the SEA Union Leadership who are giving up hours of their summer working to bring a plan that best meets the needs of our students and staff."
For the first part of the presentation, she showed a video from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) that highlighted some of the basic guidelines districts across the state would be using including mandatory face masks, mandatory handwashing and required physical distancing.
Willard said that because the fully in-person plan would be logistically impossible as a result of transportation and staffing challenges, the district would be starting with a hybrid model in the fall.
As part of the hybrid model, students in Pre-K through fourth grade along with students in specialized programming would be in school daily with a half day on Wednesday.
"We looked at all the spaces and how we could fit the students in, while getting as many of our dependent learners in as much as possible. Students will stay in their classrooms more, teachers will move in and out of their classrooms as opposed to students going into different classroom spaces," she said.
For grades five through twelve students are broken up into three different groups. Cohort A includes all students from Tolland and Granville and students from Southwick with last names beginning with A through J and will be in person on Monday and Tuesday with remote learning Wednesday through Friday.
Cohort B includes Southwick students with last names beginning with K through Z, that are in School Choice or participate in the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity and they will be in school Thursday and Friday with remote learning Monday through Wednesday.
Cohort C includes all students that are English Language Learners, have special needs or are identified in the lowest 25 percent of performance and would follow the same model as PreK through fourth grade. Willard added that parents would be notified if their students fell into this group.
Willard said that fifth and sixth grade would have a different model from seventh through twelfth grade. She said, "In fifth and sixth grade you will be paired with two teachers, one will be teaching in-person and the other would be teaching remote. Seven through twelve will be assigned one teacher and you will be learning remotely and in-person with the same teacher."
Parents also have the option to put their students into a full remote option. Willard said, "This is a full remote opinion where you child will get grade-level instruction at home. It will not necessarily be an STGRSD teacher, but the student will remain members of the STGRSD and be able to participate in any extracurricular activities are in good standing."
After DESE announced that schools could start as late as Sept. 16, as part of the Draft Plan, students would start on Sept. 15. Teachers would start on Aug. 31 and use the additional time training for the beginning of the year.
As part of the new calendar, teachers would have half days on Wednesdays with the exceptions of weeks with legal holidays. Willard also said the district may also eliminate snow days entirely.
"Because we are going to be able to teach remotely at any time, we are looking at the elimination of snow days, where we might be able to tell kids that this is a remote learning day. We're hoping with this new form of instruction that snow days will be a thing of the past and June 17 will be the last day of school," she said.
Parents and residents interested in seeing the draft plan can find the full document on the district's website or watch the video of the school committee meeting on the website or the district's YouTube Channel.