LONGMEADOW – School Committee members listened to concerns about the present teaching models used in the district at its meeting on Oct. 8.

At the start of the meeting, Diane Portfilio, the president of SEAL (Special Education Alliance of Longmeadow) read a statement informing the committee that the majority of their special education children are experiencing more difficulty with services and evaluations.

“They have regressed socially and academically,” Portfilio said. “Parents and caretakers have taken on the role of special education teachers, therapist and counselors.”

She also mentioned within the past few weeks’ parents have shared their concerns about their child’s struggle with the hybrid learning. On behalf of SEAL, Portfilio asked the committee to reconsider giving parents the choice of having children with an Individualized Education Program in place to return to school five days a week.

Superintendent M. Martin O’Shea pointed out the committee is aware of the ongoing assessment of their hybrid model and instruction plans to serve their students.

“We have from the beginning been committed to assessing those plans to ensure they’re meeting the needs of our students both academically and social emotionally,” he stated.

This past week, O’Shea sent K-5 parents and caregivers a plan for revising and enhancing the model that is currently in place. He acknowledged this was a good faith effort by the administrative team to put together a plan they felt was in the best interest of students of this community.

Along with offering a chance for the community to provide them initial feedback on the plan.     Based on the preliminary feedback O’Shea has learned that the plan has presented in the eyes of many some challenges in terms of family schedules that have been recently rearranged in the light of the model they have in place.

“All of us share a commitment to the response of our families and bring forward plans that are reflective of the needs of all our stakeholders,” O’Shea responded.

He shared with the committee the results of the survey they administered and appreciated all of the committee members who took time to fill that in and give their feedback in shaping their work going forward.

A slide presentation of the revised model was presented by elementary school principals Donna Hutton of Center Elementary School, Amy Stec of Blueberry Hill Elementary and Marie Pratt of Wolf Swamp Elementary School.

This new plan maximizes in-person teaching of literacy, mathematics and social emotional learning while maintaining small cohorts and small class sizes and taking an approach being mindful of the reality in classrooms.

The plan has an in-person reader’s workshop, writer’s workshop and math workshop with an ongoing focus on social emotional learning. At home, teachers plan tasks and activities that support a.m./p.m. instruction and curriculum such as IXL, Lexia, Discovery Ed and PBL (Project-based learning) to extend and support curriculum.

Every other Wednesday, they will rotate the cohort A and B. Cohort A students will always come to school in the morning from 8:25 to 11 a.m. and cohort B students will come in the afternoon from 12:10 to 2:45 p.m. on those alternating Wednesdays.

“Our goal now and always is to provide the most optimal learning experience we can provide for our students bound by the constraints of our present circumstances. We believe this plan address this most important rule,” Hutton told.

Their proposed start date is Oct. 26. Though that date is not set in stone, yet it’s something the principals are working towards.

However, the biggest challenge of this plan the committee addressed will be the logistics for working parents. They agreed academically the proposed plan has good benefits. On the other hand, when two caretakers have full-time jobs are not able to take or pick up their child at those times.

“In the current model, we’re asking too much of our kids at this grade level to try to manage all of the screen time. We’re asking too much of our teachers to try to teach kids in front of them and kids through a screen,” said School Commitee member Kevin Shea.

He continued, “In this proposed model, we’re asking too much of our parents. We have to figure out a way that we can make things better for kids, teachers and parents. Even if it’s better for teachers and kids. If our parents can’t do it. It’s not going to work.”

Before they can consider putting this plan in place, the committee would like to gather more feedback from parents by sending out another survey – this time by adding an open-ended response making sure parents have an opportunity to address anything the survey doesn’t.

By the end of the meeting there were updates on extra curriculum activities. The senior class play is in March. Casting and preparations will begin most likely in December and January of 2021. Events from other classes are being pushed to 2021 and many classes are also working on virtual events and ways to fundraise virtually.