EAST LONGMEADOW – At the beginning of the Oct. 5 East Longmeadow School Committee meeting, a resident/parent named Lisa asked the committee to reconsider looking at their current education model earlier than December and do what is necessary to work towards getting their children physically back into the schools as soon as possible.

Chair Gregory Thompson reiterated, "We continue to work on plans to either go hybrid or fully in on an ongoing basis. Our goal is to get our students back in the building. We fully recognized this is not an ideal situation specifically for the youngest of families. The best we can offer is a two day a week hybrid model."

The meeting proceeded with Health Director Aimee Petrosky updating the committee on local health data.

In the pediatrics cases, at the time of the Oct. 5 meeting, East Longmeadow had two positive minors that are in the school district. Again at the time of the meeting, five school district pediatrics were in quarantine. For the former two weeks, their numbers had increased to yellow in the state Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 Community-Level map, which means potential community spread. Test time frames are about five to seven days. Since then, as of the Oct. 14 COVID-19 Community-Level map, East Longmeadow was moved to the red zone after several cases were confirmed, which brought the town’s positive rate to 10.6 percent.

“This weekend alone in less than 30 hours we had seven new cases,” Petrosky said at the Oct. 5 meeting. “Seven new cases in 30 hours is moving steadily towards a significant change. We haven’t had seven cases in a weekend in a very long time.”

In her experience to the virus as it relates locally to some of the testing trends, pediatrician Dr. Greer A. Clark informed the committee they’re doing fairly well. “The amount of disease in the community is creeping up slowly, but not as rapidly as we were in the spring. I think we're all waiting to see how it goes over the next few weeks,” Clark responded.

All students six months to high school age are required to have a flu shoot by Dec. 31. The only exclusions are ones that are medically signed by a doctor or religious exclusions signed by a parent.

The committee went on to discuss the fall athletic update. On Oct. 2, the Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs Office announced updated guidelines that will allow an increase in spectators at outdoor high school sporting events.

According to the amendments, in Phase 3 Step 2 Communities, the guidance now allows no more than 100. Indoor venues are still limited to one spectator per player under 21 but there is increased maximum occupancy capacity for indoor facilities to 50 percent – it was previously 40 percent.  

Superintendent Gordon Smith said, “We have been operating under the idea of outdoor groups being at a capacity or maximum of 50 people, that’s how we initially set up some of the policies around spectators.”

He continued at the Oct. 5 meeting, “All of that changed with an expansion for communities who are considered low risk communities. At the moment being in the yellow, we’re still considered low risk. We are allowed to start looking at a larger group if our stadium can handle that going to a maximum of 100 spectators excluding the teams, coaches and officiants.” This, however, was stated prior to East Longmeadow’s red zone classification.

East Longmeadow High School Principal Frank Paige told the committee the PVIAC (Pioneer Valley Interscholastic Athletic Conference) wants to take a slower approach to this. Due to the fact sports had only started on Oct. 1 and there are a number of communities who have yet to have host a game before the guidance changed.

“What they wanted to do was take a step back and see how this week plays out in terms of their recommendations for home spectators only. The one thing they want to expand is allowing one home visitor to attend indoor volleyball matches,” Paige replied.

Starting Oct. 5, the committee began to allow two home spectators to all home games per athlete and one home spectator per athlete for volleyball. Then beginning Oct. 12, they explained they will allow two home spectators per athletes and two visiting spectators per athlete for outdoor events and one home spectator and one visiting spectator per athlete for volleyball.

Toward the end of the meeting, the committee approved the MOU with Unit E – Mobile Device/Self Insurance Program and the MOU Fall Coaching Stipends.

The committee mentioned a response letter they sent to Commissioner Jefferey C. Riley from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). A few weeks back, Riley sent a letter to 16 school districts including East Longmeadow on returning to in-person learning citing the state’s low-risk COVID-19 numbers. School officials in these communities had to submit a written response within 10 days to Commissioner Riley. The committee met the 10-day requirement, and had not – at the time of their meeting – received a response from Riley. Following the meeting, however, it was revealed by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) that both East Longmeadow and Watertown school districts are being audited “because neither district has significantly moved their timeline for returning students to in–person or hybrid instruction,” officials said.

Later in the school committee meeting, they revised the 2020-2021 school year changing Oct. 21 to a full day, which in turn moved parent conferences to the Dec. 10 half day. Another half day was moved from Jan. 22 to Jan. 29. An email will be sent out to parents on the revisions.

During the Oct. 19 school committee meeting, the committee discussed updates on their learning model moving into four and a half weeks of a remote learning model with 95 percent of their students learning remotely.

However, parents are having challenges with the remote model. Right now, there are about 120 students coming into the schools for in-person learning. Some are there five days a week, while others are there two or three days a week. Predominately, the students attending in person have been students with significant and complex needs.

“As we start working and looking, each building has a team that we’re calling our multiple teared support system (MTSS) teams,” said Smith. "We're looking at how students are doing. From attendance to how they’re engaging to students who aren’t performing up to their ability. We want to make sure we're adjusting and supporting our students in the best way possible.”

The committee is also working with their staff on where they transition as they look to make a decision bringing more people back in-person. They will be meeting with the East Longmeadow Education Association (ELEA) representatives on what is the next step in the transition: how are they going to keep people safe and secure, but also allow them to continue to make progress in the learning. The committee noted they will have another opportunity to send out surveys to families asking if they’re able to return either hybrid or full model, which model families will be sending their students in.

 “From there we’ll get an understanding of how many students will actually be in the building and if we’re able to potentially fit them all in or if we have to go with the hybrid model which only gets in half at a time,” Thompson responded.

At the end of the meeting, the committee made a motions to approve of a gift donation to Mountain View Elementary School Library in the amount of $21,000.01.