EAST LONGMEADOW – On Aug. 6, the East Longmeadow School Committee voted to start the school year with a fully remote model, with the ability to continue the conversation on a monthly basis and to make a decision by Dec. 15 on whether or not students will return to school in a different model at the second half of the school year, starting on Jan. 15, 2021. In addition, the committee voted that there will be potential for small group sessions at the beginning of the school year – to take place outside – for students to have the opportunity to see one another and to build a relationship with teachers.

Over the course of the week of Aug. 3 to 6, the school committee hosted two meetings. At the first meeting on Aug. 3, Superintendent Gordon Smith presented the East Longmeadow Public Schools (ELPS) reopening planning instructional model for the 2020–21 school year, which consisted of a breakdown between three options: a full return to school, a hybrid model where students would return to school part-time, and a fully remote option.

Ultimately, however, the district realized that having students return to school full-time was not possible, as they could not enforce DESE guidelines for within the schools safely at full enrollment. An example of something the district had to consider was desk spacing; desks had to be at a minimum 3 feet apart, however 6 feet apart was preferable.

The Aug. 3 meeting began with public comments, with several people speaking in favor of remote learning. Parent of a fourth grader at Mapleshade, Catherine Duggan, implored the school committee to make the decision to move fully remote “as soon as possible.” She explained that though she is a single mom with no family area and is working more than a full time job, she “fully recognize[s] the challenge of childcare,” but explained she felt remote was the “best option for our community.”

Student at East Longmeadow High School Beckett Vigneux explained that he felt remote would be the best option, and cited “bus equity issues,” and Gov. Charlie Baker’s recent discussion about cutting down large gatherings from 100 to 50 people as reasons for why “the best option would be remote,” he said.

As the meeting continued, Smith explained that “this planning has been incredibly challenging.” He noted that as the district has gone through nine weeks of planning, he recognizes that “... unfortunately we know that no matter the plan ultimately that we put in place, there will be some who are still feeling anxious or unsupported. We’re going to continue up until we return to school to try and mitigate and alleviate this as [much as] possible.”

Smith explained that the district has been working on a reopening plan since June 5, and since then, there has been more and more new guidance released which has at times undone plans that were made previously. He added that there were four running groups that were helping create the plans.

Smith presented a hybrid model plan, as well as a remote plan for returning to school. For specifics, interested individuals can view the presented plans online at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iQ_UDwn-Cpp_qiS7klfuW5yv-xMEAZAfGwbTBFBRjfo/edit. However, to summarize, the hybrid model broke students down into cohorts: students with last names A to Let would return to school on Mondays and Tuesdays, would have remote learning on Wednesdays, and on Thursdays and Fridays would “utilize personalized learning tools,” with “live individual/small group instruction/support provided by the staff.” In addition, students would be encouraged to work independently on teacher–posted assignments and reviewing information or videos to prepare for in–person learning. Students in cohort B, with the last names Li to Z would have an opposite schedule to cohort A, attending school in person on Thursdays and Fridays, would have review and live video instruction on Mondays and Tuesdays, and would have remote learning on Wednesdays as well. High priority students as defined by DESE would have in–person instructions and services no matter what.

The remote learning model, presented by Smith, explains that “The district, even in a fully remote learning model, will focus on recultivating relationships and providing the needed social and emotional learning and support for students during the first few weeks while we redevelop routines for academic instruction and learning.” The plan explains that schedules would be built to emulate the structure of an in-person school day “to the extent possible in a virtual setting; this will aid students in feeling a sense of familiarity and security.”

The elementary portion of the remote learning plan noted that students would “receive live instruction from their classroom teacher,” “would receive live instruction from specialist teachers,” “the live teaching would be broken up between subjects and/or professionals with set breaks scheduled for students and staff,” and “special education teachers, counselors, specialists, interventionists, and paraprofessionals will provide other live teaching and/or support sessions with small groups throughout the day.”

At the middle and high school level, the remote model explains: “Classes (core courses and electives) will have a regularly scheduled time, additional support and live teaching will be scheduled utilizing special education teachers, counselors, academic coaches, and paraprofessionals based on student need, time for guided independent learning for students may also be scheduled, scheduled breaks will be established in between classes/learning blocks, office hours or extra help blocks will be scheduled.”

For all schools with the remote model, the reopening plan explains, there will be scheduled breaks during remote learning days. The “ELPS will utilize Google Meet ... attendance will be taken and recorded, assignments will be graded and term grades will be issued.” In addition, the plan shares that they will work to build relationships and routines and teachers will incorporate direct instruction and collaborative learning in their lessons. “Teachers will be able to utilize Netop to control Chromebooks to allow teachers to freeze students’ screens on students’ Chromebooks, block or limit certain websites, show their screens, and see what the students are viewing,” the plan notes and continues to state, “Student expectations for onscreen etiquette will be clearly outlined and teachers will utilize participation rubric for accountability.”

The remote plan continues to give more information independent asynchronous learning, formative assessment to determine learning gaps, small group learning, and collaborative planning/MTSS time. This can be reviewed by the public at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iQ_UDwn-Cpp_qiS7klfuW5yv-xMEAZAfGwbTBFBRjfo/edit.

During the Aug. 3 presentation of the plan, School Committee Vice Chair Sarah Truoiolo stated that she wished the local health professionals were in attendance at the meeting so the committee could ask them questions directly. While the professionals were not available at the time, Smith provided information from Director of Public Health Aimee Petrosky. He explained that as of July 29, total case count for COVID-19 in East Longmeadow was 278 cases. With that said, over the 14 days prior to the meeting, there were four new cases. Two of the four cases were in the age group of 18 or under, according to Smith.

At the Aug. 6 meeting, the committee had the opportunity to discuss their concerns with Petrosky as well as Dr. Joanne Welch and Dr. Greer Clark. Petrosky shared the most up-to-date numbers, noting that there were a total of 286 total confirmed cases in East Longmeadow, with ? of the cases in long term care settings.

“People have asked where we stand with pediatric,” Petrosky said, and explained that they had their first two pediatric cases “within the last couple of weeks.” Petrosky said that the two cases were independent from one another.

Petrosky then explained to those in attendance at the meeting what would occur if a student contracted the virus.

“Contact tracing will occur any time we have a positive student or a positive close contact of a student,” Petrosky explained.

Petrosky then shared a few hypothetical scenarios that were created to display what would happen if a student contracted the virus while in the hybrid model of returning to school.

“Jack is a second grader and one of his parents tested positive for COVID-19. What we could do is restrict Jack because he has a household contact who is positive, but then given [the] age group we would restrict all of that cohort, all of his peers removed [from school],” Petrosky said. “If Jack is positive [for COVID-19], all cohorts would need to be tested as close contacts. If Jack tests negative, all cohors can return. Jack will have to continue to stay home, though, for 14 days.”

As conversations continued, Petrosky said, “We’re going to put in every possible protection ... as a public health professional, the safest route is fully remote.”

School committee Chair Gregory Thompson asked if it would be safe to select the fully remote option but to have small groups of students meet with other students and an educator for “an hour or so,” offering “limited socialization.”

He asked, “Is there a big concern with small groups of five to six people, social distancing with masks?”

Petrosky said this could be done outside, and that being outside is much safer than in. “That seems safe and reasonable to me, given that they’re outside,” Petrosky said.

Dr. Clark agreed, stating, “Smaller groups are better. Only ideal is keeping them home, but I do agree that we’re going to have to loosen up on this. Outside is the best option, bringing them in small groups is the better option.”

Moving on to discuss the “live” instruction that would occur in the remote plan, Truoiolo asked what would happen if a student was not able to be on their computer at the time of live instruction. “Do we have a back-up plan for them?” she asked the committee, stating “Are we recording some of these lessons for if a child misses instruction? If we move to fully remote, we don’t know that we’re going to have adults present that can facilitate learning,” Truoiolo explained to the committee.

Smith explained that some staff already film lessons and have those ready for if a student is absent, and some utilize Google Classroom for students who have missed classwork. However, Smith said they would have to look at what they’ve used in the past and to see what would be the best way to accommodate this issue.

When it came to a vote, the committee unanimously voted to return to school fully remote on Sept. 16 with the opportunity to have small group sessions. The committee explained they would revisit this decision at the end of October or beginning of November to look at the potential for a January 15 return date under a different model. The committee said they would have a decision on this by December 15 so there would be a transition time to move to hybrid, if applicable.

Currently, there is a draft for each ELPS school on remote schedules which can be viewed by the public. Links to the draft on remote schedules for students and their specific schools can be found below.

•Meadow Brook: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GyX74Tsgkj-oeNR9BWkSnGnk2LBlGB52XE7lRZb3lnY/edit

• Mapleshade:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ykuq82q_PcF0YEZ5oYjX6b_OPfOcQ4jV1ROAYgxhQ2s/edit

•Mountain View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fJ1DHyaE9T6opIRnMc_YCnd16x8ddF-l/view

• Birchland Park Middle School:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nakxoh_qKcq1na_1QRWRQUWLlZUzqLqlxwnvmijCHWw/edit

•East Longmeadow High School:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M_aWzoC1mWMd7H57krDFTDHXkohjup20eYBVTUFtLg0/edit#gid=0.