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Date: 8/10/2020
AGAWAM – During a two-hour long meeting on the morning of Aug. 7, the Agawam School Committee voted to adopt a hybrid learning plan for the start of the 2020–2021 school year.
The meeting initially began on the evening of Aug. 4, however, due to power outages as a result of tropical storm Isaias, the meeting was postponed. The meeting began with a reading of the minutes from the meeting that had previously begun.
Mayor William Sapelli said at the time of the interruption, the three models for returning to school were in the process of being discussed. The three models school committee members were able to vote in favor of or against included a completely remote model where students would attend class online each day, a full return where students will return to in-person learning full time and a hybrid model where students will attend a mixture of in-person and remote classes.
School committee member, Wendy Rua, picked up where the meeting left off, discussing her concerns, questions and experience touring the Roberta G. Doering School. Rua explained that she was the parent of “three school-aged children, one of whom will be a rising senior.” However, she explained that she was not letting her emotions impact the plan on which she would be voting.
“So if I was voting today by my feelings, my wants and my wishes I would send my children back to school, because I like many of you have struggled with challenges of working and having school be remote,” she said. “But it won’t be my feelings, rather the facts, and the many questions I have unanswered for me, leading me to where I am right now. Safety and putting students first should be our number one priority.”
She said as she toured the school, she tried to put herself in the mindset of a teacher, “What if someone around me is sick, what if someone around me is not wearing a mask, is the headache I have right now just because I have a headache, should I stay home or is it something else, maybe I’m sick.”
Rua said all the “what-ifs” that teachers would have to manage each day “brought me to a place where we need true answers and protocols in place so that we can reassure their concerns have been addressed before we ask them to go back.”
“At this time I don’t feel confident that I’ve been able to get the answers to all those questions yet,” she said. Rua said she does go out into the community and she does wear a mask, but “those places tend to be air conditioned, those places tend to have pretty good ventilation.”
Rua said she had the opportunity to leave the tour and ask a teacher at Doering some questions she’d received from students and parents within the community.
“The questions that were going through my mind at that time were if I was a student, what if the kid next to me wasn’t wearing a mask, what if I need help with my classwork and no one can come near me or sit next to me or help me, maybe I don’t feel well and the teacher can’t come near me. What if I can’t sit still in a desk for six hours,” she questioned.
“All these what ifs isn’t about the feelings, it’s about trying to find the answers to those questions, and I don’t feel like I have all the answers to those questions yet,” she said.
She then asked several questions, beginning with the number of active COVID-19 cases in town and how cases of the virus had been reported in residents under the age of 18. As of the morning of Aug. 7, Agawam Health Agent Kathy Auer said there were a total of 10 active cases in the Town of Agawam, five in the community and five within the long term healthcare facilities. Additionally, Auer said within the age bracket of 0-19-years-old there had been a total of 12 reported cases.
Rua asked why there would not be temperature checks at the door of schools. Interim Superintendent Sheila Hoffman said the district had purchased thermometers, “however it was brought to our attention by the medical community that a fever is not indicative of possible COVID positive cases, and it would not be a helpful screening measure for us.”
Rua also questioned the results of the community survey for parents that went out. The survey resulted in 83 percent of families in favor of returning to in-person learning and following recommended guidance and safety measures. She questioned if the district had any data about who responded to the survey to verify if it was, in fact, answered by parents of students in the district, answered by only one parent and done just one time by each family.
Hoffman said, “We cannot verify any of the data in the survey. We do not know if people took it more than once, we cannot verify if both parents of a family took it and are represented twice.” Hoffman added that the survey was “to give us a pulse of the community” to see how people felt about returning. However, she said “it is not specific and we cannot verify that data.”
Ultimately, Rua said “81 percent does not mean 81 percent of our community is asking to go back, not at all.” Rua then went on to discuss the percentage of teachers who wanted to or felt safe returning to teach in-person and asked for clarification regarding the numbers. She said, “Seventy-eight percent of our teachers, it was said to us, want to return if there is six-foot distancing; 190 teachers wanted remote, that’s about 38 percent; 146 wanted hybrid, that’s about 29 percent; [and] 59 want all in, which is 12 percent.”
Hoffman said the data regarding the teachers’ preferences came from two different surveys, one was given by the AEA and another given by the district with support of the AEA. She said the 78 percent number represented teachers who had responded to a specific question indicating whether or not they were comfortable teaching from a distance of three to six-feet away.
Rua then asked Hoffman what the district’s plan was for teacher absences or teachers that fall into a high risk category. Attorney Russell Dupere, who was also on the call, said, teachers who can’t return would either receive a leave or the district would try to accommodate their needs. Dupere said, the leave could be either paid or unpaid.
Additionally, he said staff who “couldn’t return because they simply felt like they couldn’t return because they felt like they might get COVID in the school environment” – those staff, he said, “probably wouldn’t have any protection under the statutes.”
Hoffman also clarified that parents who didn’t feel comfortable sending their children back to school would have the choice to opt-in to a fully remote option. She also said the district was “working with the Department of Education to see if we could have certain populations of students be in person.”
However, Hoffman said ultimately, they “would like to provide services both remotely and in person.” Rua questioned if a family should choose a remote-only option for their child if they would get instruction from an Agawam educator. Hoffman said at the time of the meeting she believed that each student that chose to learn remotely would be taught by an Agawam teacher.
Committee member Shelly Reed then said she doesn’t believe anyone was taking the decision lightly, and her decision was based on several factors. “One is that the Center for Disease Controls and officials with the U.S. Department of Education, including the commissioner, said the guidelines they are imposing take into place, into account the risk that the virus poses to children,” she said. “And the evidence that remote learning can have a detrimental effect on the children’s education and their mental and emotional well being.”
She questioned when it would really be safe enough to return to school and said, “We can’t prevent or control the risk, we can only try to manage it the best we can.” She said while she believes children should go back full time, the challenge the district is facing is the lack of space in the schools needed for social distancing. She said she is in support of a hybrid model for this reason, but believes parents need support as it will be challenging for them.
Committee member Dawn Dube also said her decision did not come lightly. Dube, who is also the director of a preschool in town said she had served as part of the group who developed the reopening plan for preschools in town. “On paper it seemed impossible,” she said. “But we did it, we are open and running successfully and the children are very happy and having fun.”
She added that she has confidence in school staff, and she’d be voting in favor of in-person learning. She said she understood that people were afraid or nervous to return, however, “When are we going to stop being afraid? This is a virus, and viruses have been around for thousands of years. We can control it with safeguards, but we will never be able to totally eradicate it.”
Committee member Anthony Bonavita, however, disagreed with sending children back to school. He said while he respected his fellow committee members’ decisions and it was a “very difficult decision to make,” he would not feel safe or comfortable going back to school if he were a teacher. Additionally, he said if his grandson, who he said is three, were of school age and a little older, he would not feel comfortable sending him to school for in-person learning. “The answer is no. We have not heard from a doctor, we’re not doctors. We have no right to make medical decisions,” he said.
Bonavita also expressed his frustration that it was the school committee making the decision about how students in the district should return to school and not Gov. Charlie Baker. “In my opinion, the governor should have made a decision on this matter state wide. He has the experts around him, and instead he gave it to us, local politicians without a medical background,” he said.
He added that he’d consulted with professionals in the medical field and did not believe it was safe. “I consulted people in the medical field, I talked to them. The resounding answer to the question as to whether we should go back to school in a fashion of full in or 50/50 hybrid, the answer was a resounding no,” he said. “Massachusetts is in an uptick, some of the cities, not Agawam yet, are surging. They’re beginning to surge is probably the correct language. That scares me, it scares the governor.”
Bonavita also cited several different numbers being presented by official organizations that differed from the number of COVID-19 cases given by Auer. “Where are all these numbers coming from? How can these reports be issued and be totally wrong state-wide? So I am confused about numbers, I don’t trust the numbers,” he said. “People’s lives are in my hands. I have to vote my conscience.”
He continued, “If there was a plan that could delay the hybrid and we could start with remote, I would consider it. There is no such plan. Therefore I have no choice to vote for remote.”
Member Kerri O’Connor called the decision one “that has been forced upon us from our government.” She said she knew firsthand the struggles of a single parent and the social emotional needs of students as her teenage son had special needs. However, she emphasized that safety was the priority and said, “I would rather overreact than underreact.”
She said the hybrid plan still had many questions that needed to be answered and questioned how committee members expected children to return to school when they were still meeting virtually.
“We are all here virtually, and we expect our children to go into school? What example does this set for our community? It’s better to overreact than to underreact and save our children’s lives and save our teachers’ lives,” she said.
Member Carmino Mineo first clarified that if a hybrid model was adopted, the school committee would have the option to pivot “both forward and backward.” After it was confirmed that would be the case, he said one of his concerns was that there were no specific metrics to lead to a re-evaluation to pivot.
He added that while he still thought “the best learning environment for a child is in school, in front of a teacher,” it would be “near impossible” due to current restrictions. He said his vote would be for a hybrid model. “I know it does not solve everyone’s problems. I know that, there’s still going to be child care issues for the parents that work, I know that teachers totally have done everything that they can last year through the remote model,” he said.
Rua said that she didn’t feel as though “we’re ready to be in school at this point.” She said, “My issue and why I’m stuck is we keep getting different numbers and different answers to the most important category of safety. I can’t vote for anything but a remote start if I don’t have the answers to those questions and I keep getting different numbers every time I ask.”
She, again, said her decision was not based on feelings. “If it was I’d be voting to give my oldest child his senior year and put my other kids in school,” she said.
Rua asked if there was an option where the committee could vote on a hybrid model with a remote start, however, Sapelli said that wouldn’t be possible and the committee would need to vote in favor of a remote start. However, Rua said she would vote in favor of “a window of 30 to 45 days and then moving into assembling a category of getting these kids in the building and getting these students what we all want them to have.” This, she said, would “to give us time to thoughtfully have all these questions answered before we move into that.”
Dube then made a motion to adopt all in learning, meaning students would go back to school for in-person learning five days a week. The motion, however, failed after a vote of five to two.
Mineo then made a motion to adopt the hybrid phase planned for reopening, with a trigger to be reevaluated for a pivot contingent on the state’s phases or steps in conjunction with state guidelines. However, some members of the committee disagreed with the mayor who said that they would not be able to amend Mineo’s motion to have a 30-day remote start. Bonavita then made an amendment for a 30-day remote start to assess before moving into a hybrid plan.
After some discussion on voting procedure, Mineo withdrew his motion so the committee could address Bonavita’s motion. Further clarification provided made it clear that the motion presented by Bonavita, if passed, would have students begin remote learning for the first 30 school days of the year, and then the committee would reassess based on the conditions of the state and the coronavirus.
After the reassessment, the committee would have the chance to move students into a hybrid model learning where they attended school for in-person learning part time. When Dube questioned why 30 days, Bonavita said he thought this would give the committee time to assess the state of the virus and state recommendations.
Hoffman then gave an outline of the proposed hybrid plan, which would have students beginning learning on Sept. 16. Hoffman said students in pre-K through fifth grade and seventh graders would begin hybrid learning. Students not in those grades would begin the year with remote learning. On Sept. 24, Hoffman said sixth, eighth and ninth graders would begin hybrid learning. This, she said, is because those grades “are new to their schools, so they would be in school as a grade level by themselves for a week before adding the third phase.” The third phase, she said, would begin on Oct. 1, where the remaining students would begin hybrid learning.
O’Connor said she was worried that the 30-day time frame may “cause barriers.” She said she believed the committee should assess as needed and thought 30-days “was not enough time.”
O’Connor proposed instead, taking 30-days off the table and reassessing “every two weeks or every three weeks.” The committee then voted on the remote learning plan, which failed by a vote of four to three.
Mineo’s motion was then resubmitted and seconded by Reed. Bonavita said he disagreed with the plan as “it doesn’t protect teachers, it doesn’t protect students” because it “doesn’t have a remote start.” Dupere tried to reassure the committee and said, “What I would say is you’re making a decision now with several weeks left to, so whichever way you vote, you and administration should continue to look at the cases. If things change dramatically one way or another before the school year starts, I would say we look at it.
“I know the commissioner wants a decision by a certain date, but if you have a dramatic change either up or down, there’s nothing in my opinion that should stop you as a committee from making decisions about what is right or wrong,” he said. “I’ve also been telling other committees that, that this is not. He wants a decision by now, parents need a decision about what’s going to happen, but that said if there were something dramatic going to happen one way or the another in the figures there’s no reason you should turn a blind eye to it and not consider it.”
However, Dupere said, to his knowledge if they start remote then “you can’t have high school fall sports and you may also lose the CARES Act money, so it’s not as easy to go from remote to hybrid.”
Bonavita said he wasn’t willing to “trade lives for $2 million.” Additionally, he said there hasn’t been a decision by MIAA to take sports away if the school were to start remote. O’Connor agreed with Bonavita, stating “there’s no amount of funding, for me, to save a life.” She added that while “the administration has done to the best of their ability” she still thought, “there’s a lot of unanswered questions in this hybrid plan.”
Rua questioned how a remote start was different than the hybrid plan, which, due the phased introduction of in-person learning, called for students in several grade levels to start the school year remotely.
Hoffman said the difference between a remote start and the proposed hybrid plan was “not all of our students are starting remote.” She said, “Some of our students are starting in the hybrid mode on the first day of school.
In the final vote of the meeting, the hybrid plan was approved 4-3.