Three Rivers Community Schools (TRCS) reopened to instruction for the academic year under its “Return to Learn” COVID-19 response plan Tuesday. Reopening plans included all-virtual instruction options for students through a platform called Lincoln Learning, as well as options for in-classroom instruction for grade schoolers and hybrid in-person and online instruction for secondary students.

Superintendent Ron Moag provided a brief update to Board of Education (BOE) members at a work session Tuesday evening. Moag said he visited Norton Elementary School with board member Anne Riopel, where the two assisted sanitizing incoming students’ hands.

Riopel and Moag then proceeded to visit other schools, saying that arrivals went well despite the rain and the addition of new pandemic screening procedures. The two were able to stop into classrooms and visit returning students. “All of them were really happy to be back in the classroom,” Moag said. “Really, there was just a positive feeling all the way around.”

Moag offered “just a huge thank you to our entire staff at all the schools for how they welcomed back the kids today, to (Facilities Director) Brian Leonard and his crew for getting the buildings ready, (Finance Director) Blair (Brindley) in the Business Office to make sure we had everything we needed, and the teachers and staff for just doing a great job in preparing to get our kids into school.”

Schools’ Bond Work on Secure Entrances Continues

Work under a bond proposal that passed last November continues. Leonard provided board members with a detailed update on work being done by architects, project managers, and contractors to finalize design plans and specifications for security-based improvements to the entrances at TRCS school buildings.

The secure entrances work forms the better part of the scope of Phase One of the multi-million-dollar bond project, which also includes the weight room at Three Rivers High School. Phase Two will involve an addition to Three Rivers Middle School, and Phase Three will involve improvements to a variety of athletic facilities. GMB Architecture and Engineering is providing project management and design services, and Skillman Group is serving as the primary construction contractor.

In July, Leonard met with Moag and GMB staff to review design plans before they could be submitted to the construction team at Skillman. Later that month, he met with suppliers to gain understanding of building management technology systems, both current and potential new systems, to evaluate the benefits and capabilities of the various options. Leonard continues to evaluate those systems and expects to return to the board with a formal recommendation.

During August, Leonard met with other service providers to evaluate the schools’ existing fire protection systems and cross check those evaluations with similar analysis from GMB. As a result, the design team are better able to determine which systems can accommodate updates, and which will need replacement due to obsolescence.

Other analysis conducted over the summer includes door audits, structural review, and a historical analysis by American Electric Power of peak electrical load demands that showed existing electric service is sufficient to accommodate proposed changes. Leonard also met with Moag and staff teams from the various schools to review interior specifications, including furniture, colors, lighting, and other items.

The construction team has been analyzing all of the specifications and design documents to assign cost values and timetables to the work. GMB has established some proposed, estimated costs, but further analysis from Skillman will be more detailed. Leonard soon expects to be able to present two- and three-dimensional representations of what the various modifications, upgrades, and additions will look like for final review.

Leonard said the process has been going quite well. He said the process can seem long, difficult, and repetitive, but said it was “like peeing an onion” in terms of finding about more needs and opportunities for improvement as design work proceeds. There have been benefits to the project’s budget as newly discovered savings in some areas permit other things to happen in other areas.

Moag said the process has been “inclusive,” and said Leonard, the consultants, and project team members have done a “great job” in coming up with “a design that meets their needs.” Each building will have unique features. Most significant, he said, is that Hoppin Elementary is getting “a real office like the other schools” in conjunction with reconstruction of its entrances.

Pandemic Plans and Procedures Reviewed

Curriculum Director Nikki Nash reviewed the district’s Extended COVID Learning Plan document, which it must submit to the St. Joseph Intermediate School District (ISD) by September 15 and post to the TRCS website by October 1. The document, which references more detailed information contained in the longer TRCS Roadmap, describes a few major assurances that TRCS must meet as the pandemic situation continues.

One set of assurances centers on educational goals, outlines, and timelines. This includes testing schedules and learning benchmarks. TRCS must make a monthly report to the BOE on educational progress and must post its scores to the ISD three times per year, concurrent with testing schedules in October, February, and at the conclusion of the school year.

Each subgroup among kindergarten classes, grade schools, and middle and high school has its own academic areas for which results must be tracked and reported. There are related measures in both the shorter Learning Plan document and the longer Roadmap document pertaining to grading and instruction procedures.

Another part of the document’s assurances detail pandemic response plans. TRCS must work with the local health department to have plans in place in the event of closures due either to a COVID-19 outbreak at a particular facility or due to a change in pandemic phases from the Governor’s Office. For example, in the event a school must go to all-remote instruction, a plan exists in the Roadmap document showing that “we are ready to transition as quickly as we can,” Nash said.

A third component pertains to student interaction through the virtual instruction platform. In the midst of document preparation, Nash said a change to virtual instruction plans occurred on August 21. Mentors in the virtual program must now be certified teachers. Previously, districts could use paraprofessionals to serve as mentors, but that is “not the case any more,” Nash said.

The documents show how TRCS will comply with requirements for two-way interaction with students, Nash said. Software permits student interactions to be tracked, and staff must report student interaction rates to the BOE on a monthly basis. “We must hold ourselves accountable to staying in touch with virtual students,” Nash said.

Responding to questions from Riopel, Nash said middle and high school students will continue to follow their Educational Development Plans (EDP) through interaction with counselors, and those plans will remain part of students’ curricula. Sixth graders will receive an introduction to the EDP process this year but will not be required to develop their plans until next year.

Nash also said that instruction continues to follow the district’s curriculum maps. “It’s the same content, just presented in a little different way throughout the week” for virtual and hybrid students, she said. Students who are participating in the hybrid option are not stuck without new content on the days they are not in the classroom, Nash said.

Special Education Director Nancy Lubeski also said special education teachers are working on their own contingency plans, and emotional learning and mental health support will continue to be available to students and staff. “Times are tough, there is a lot of change, a lot of thigns happeneing, and we want to make sure our students are supported,” Lubeski said.

Also Regarding Tuesday’s Work Session:

• Brindley said evaluation to revenue changes amid the pandemic is ongoing. Pandemic-specific funding is helping offset losses in other areas. Some expenses relating to the Lincoln Learning platform are coming in lower than expected due to partial participation by some students, which the service provider has prorated accordingly.
• She also said foodservice will be 100 percent free for any student who needs it this fall. The funding making that possible is subject to a few conditions, but Brindley said she thinks the program will be available through December 31. She said families should respond to surveys so staff know how many meals to prepare.
• Moag recognized the retirements of seven TRCS staff members, congratulating them and thanking them for their service. Belinda Juhl retired with 26 years of service, and Philip Anderson, Scott Grace, and Cynthis McKnight retired with 25 years of service. Joyce Gyllstrom, RIger Gunnick, and Susan Buckhold retired with 21, 20, and 19 years of service to the district respectively.
• Technology Coordinator Nick Bryant reviewed the content moderation measures that are in place on Chromebooks being distributed to students for remote and virtual learning. He said there are “two very rigorous filtering systems in place.” One is called Palo Alto, and the other is called Lightspeed. The systems employ over 122 different filtering rules that categorize websites that students should not be able to access, and the systems automatically add new websites to its filters by the minute.
• Instead of permitting direct connection to the BOE’s Google Meeting platform, public meetings now being streamed on YouTube instead to allow higher viewer capacity. Persons wishing to submit public comment under the new format must now do so in advance and in writing. Information is available on the TRCS website.
• The link provided to the YouTube stream of Tuesday’s work session was replaced by another one around the session’s start time due to technical difficulties. Members of the public wishing to watch live meeting proceedings should check the main TRCS YouTube channel for active streams in the event that a linked stream is not working when it is supposed to.
• Board president Erin Nowak, Riopel, and other board members had some discussion about whether it is appropriate for board members to independently schedule visits to schools outside of other, scheduled events or tours. Board member Linda Baker said board members were instructed in the past to notify a school’s principal and Moag or Nowak not as a rule, but as a courtesy.
• Several board members thanked administration and staff at length for their hard work in preparing for the new school year amid the challenges of the pandemic.

Dave Vago is a 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.