At a Three Rivers Community Schools (TRCS) Board of Education work session Monday, board members discussed the latest updates to the district’s reopening plan, which it will formally adopt at a special meeting on Wednesday, August 12.
Called the “Return to Learn Plan,” the document includes procedures for in-person, virtual, and hybrid learning options depending on the state’s pandemic phase system. It also includes procedures and protocols for pandemic safety and containment measures, and an embedded COVID Response Plan that addresses what to do in case of potential exposure at one or more schools. Although many details are close to finalization, board members did have questions about sections of the plan that staff and other leadership will seek to resolve prior to the August 12 meeting.
One set of questions pertained to if, how, and when the schools would check arriving students’ temperatures. Superintendent Ron Moag said the Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency (BHSJ) and the schools’ attorneys did not recommend temperature taking, but it is among the recommendations issued by the governor’s office. Board members Anne Riopel, Julia Awe, and Linda Baker questioned whether schools could rely on all parents to accurately or reliably check their students for symptoms prior to sending them to school.
Moag said because of the volume of work involved in checking temperatures for the entire student body each day, even with reduced in-person attendance, there would be a personnel cost involved. Board President Erin Nowak suggested teachers might be able to perform the checks.
Board Vice President Dan Ryan said he felt it best that temperatures be checked as students enter the building in order to minimize any potential contact between that time and whenever their temperatures are assessed. The board also discussed Monday whether temperature checking on buses might be appropriate, which some members said would be partly mitigated by masking and social distance spacing procedures.
Previously, conversations by the board suggested a proactive temperature-testing program might become part of a reopening plan, but Moag said subsequent BHSJ recommendations led to a modification of the draft plan that eliminated regular testing in favor of only testing students who might have symptoms. Based on Monday’s conversation, the board directed Moag to put together a plan with costs for having first hour and classroom teachers assess arriving students’ temperatures.
Moag also reviewed masking procedures. Primary students will be required to wear masks until their temperatures are taken. Middle and high school students will be required to wear them at all times. Masks will be available for students that do not have them, and exemptions will be permitted for students and employees with documented conditions that permit it.
TRCS Curriculum Director Nikki Nash further detailed the status of planning for virtual and remote learning options. A survey of students’ families, with 1,977 responses received as of Monday, showed 663 students plan to choose a virtual learning option, including 362 elementary students. The families of 694 students had not yet responded as Monday’s meeting.
Nash said staff originally looked at seven service platform options for all-virtual instruction. After narrowing that down to three, she recommended a service called Lincoln Learning to Moag. At the elementary level, that platform costs $505 per student, including art, music, and physical education, “just like they would get face to face,” she said. At the middle and high school levels, the platform costs $600 per student and includes four core areas and two electives.
Based on current survey response numbers, Nash anticipates a total cost of $350,000 for the platform. She said for that projection, staff are currently counting families that did not respond to the survey as choosing in-person instruction but are reaching out to those families to try to confirm their responses.
Board members asked Moag and Nash questions about capacity issues, academic standards, mentorship, assessment capabilities, counseling and emotional support, and internet accessibility for students.
The question of mentorship and teaching capacity has yet to be resolved for hybrid and virtual students, but staff are evaluating options for providing students with contact and communication options, including bringing in mentors to help with teacher workload and ensure students have direct assistance with instruction. Nash estimated a capacity of about 60 students per mentor. Regarding counseling and emotional support, Moag and Nash said services are contracted to permit students access to services five days a week.
Due to social distancing requirements that reduce in-person classroom capacity, Nash said all teachers will still be needed, since numbers currently are “not low enough to say we don’t need this teacher, we don’t need that teacher, or to reassign them.”
For students using remote and virtual options, staff are working to determine where the best placements for the schools’ mobile hotspots will be. Moag said staff are evaluating that based on what did and did not work during the spring shutdown, through outreach to families that need it, and through continued evaluation of the effectiveness of different access locations.
Nash said the virtual platform provider will “follow the same standards we are” with respect to academic standards and curriculum. Students will require daily monitoring, she said, “to ensure they’re on pace. (They) could easily fall behind. Courses will take a six- or seven-hour day. It will be just like they are in school full-time.”
Staff are meeting this week to review what expectations of students and families will look like in ensuring instructional standards are met for students working from home. Nash said that remote instruction will be much like it was in the spring shutdown, but with “more accountability, attendance, (and) rigor.”
Some athletic programs are also still unresolved. Moag said high school golf, tennis, and cross-country programs will proceed. If the pandemic rating remains at Phase Four, he said football programs will start on August 17. He was less certain about indoor programs like volleyball.
Moag said, “(Athletic Director) Matt Stofer is meeting with his directors and they are hedging their bets” to determine program statuses based on how the pandemic plays out. “There may be something coming out of Wolverine Conference. They may make a recommendation not to do middle school sports,” Moag said.
Moag said if the state moves back into pandemic Phase Three before school starts, all instruction would become remote using TRCS staff and faculty. If there is a shift to Phase Three after the semester gets underway, students using the virtual platform through Lincoln Learning will remain with it for the rest of the semester, while students using the hybrid option will go to remote instruction with TRCS staff and faculty.
Phase Five would permit a return to face to face instruction full-time. However, if the shift occurs after schools open, students using the virtual platform would remain committed to that for the duration of the semester.
Policy Updates Reviewed
Also at Monday’s work session, BOE members reviewed changes to the Middle School Handbook, which it will adopt later this month. Meanwhile, it held a first reading for a new policy, numbered 2266 and called “nondiscrimination on the basis of sex.” A second reading will take place on August 12. Once adopted, the policy will replace a previous policy on sexual violence.
Board members also discussed at length a proposed, draft statement on racial discrimination. Watershed Voice covered that conversation here.
With Moag’s review upcoming later this month, BOE members agreed to reissue a staff survey pertaining to his performance in order to obtain updated information. Nowak said the evaluation is to be based on performance metrics the board set in November 2019. Several BOE members felt current survey results would also be informative.
During discussion and at the conclusion of Monday’s work session, Ryan, Awe, and other board members thanked Moag and Nash for their efforts in planning the reopening and response plans. Nowak expressed thanks to Stofer for his work with a recent Sports Boosters’ golf outing, as well as his contributions to other recent support efforts.
Dave Vago is a staff writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.
