During the 02/22/2021 Appleton Area School District Board of Education Meeting, there was a question and answer session after the leadership team announced that 5-6 grades would be returning to 5 day a week in-person instruction starting March 15 and 7-12 grades would be moving to 4 day a week in-person instruction starting April 5. Although I touched briefly on some of the points raised during that discussion, I thought I would recap it a little more fully.
Jim Clemons, the newest member of the Board, questioned waiting until April 5 to move 7-12 graders to 4 day a week in-person learning. He wanted to know if there was anything the Board could do to help move that date forward. He would like to see then up and running a week or two before Spring Break because, no matter how hard people try, they can’t think of everything. Getting them back earlier would result in being able to use Spring Break as a natural buffer to take care of anything they might not have thought of.
Per Superintendent Judy Baseman, there are some mixed opinions on that. There are some people who think AASD is moving too quickly and some who think they’re going not quickly enough. They continue to balance the opportunities they have for the students with the safety and mitigation strategies. April 5 is their best target taking into account what the principals are telling them regarding the time they need to prepare. [This would seem to fly in the face of their contention that “Even as we continue to see widespread community transmission in our city and region, we are prepared to have students in our buildings as soon as the criteria for pandemic conditions are met. We have worked throughout the summer and fall to plan and prepare our buildings to ensure that safety protocol and procedures are in place.”]
Assistant Superintendent Ben Vogel stated that they’re working really closely with their principals as they try to figure out how to safely bring in twice the number of students into their buildings–not just within classrooms but also common areas. High schools have 1,400-1,800 students, and so they’re going to have to think differently. They’re going to have to think about how to pod students because they won’t be able to have 6 feet of distance in the classrooms. He’s talked to students and some feel comfortable specifically because, right now, they are able to keep 6 feet apart. Now AASD will have to give families a chance to determine if they want to continue in-person instruction or move to fully virtual when the district increases the number of students in their buildings. Right now over 1,000 students at the high school level have decided to remain fully virtual. They have to see if more students will feel uncomfortable coming back with twice the number of students in the building.
Jim Clemons stated that he understands there’s a certain portion that wants to stay virtual and they’re entitled to that. There’s also a portion that would like to get back as quickly as possible. They can’t guarantee where the numbers will be but they certainly seem to be heading in the right direction. So, as long as he’s on the Board the leadership team will have his support to increase in-person instruction as quickly as they possibly can.
Gary Janhke was excited to be having this discussion. He wanted to know how cohorting/podding would look like. How many pods or cohorts would typically be in a room and how would that affect staffing?
Per Superintendent Baseman, podding looks different at different levels. At the 5th and 6th grade level, if there are 15 Monday/Tuesday students and 15 Thursday/Friday students whoe will not be put together for 30 students total and the room is large, maybe they won’t need to be podded at all. But many of AASD’s older buildings have smaller classrooms, so the students might be put in groups of 3, so there would be 3 desks together 6 feet away from another set of 3 desks, etc. The fewer number of students within a pod the better. So if they are able to do 15 pods of 2 instead of 10 pods of 3 that would be better.
Gary wanted to know who’s responsible for designing the room–the teacher or a facilities person? Is designing these classrooms part of the delay?
Nan Bunnow said that every building is different and every footprint is different. With this targeted start date, principals will be working with their 5th and 6th grade teachers regarding their classroom layout and also looking at the overall building footprint so that they can determine things such as whether it would make sense to relocate a smaller class to a larger space and also how do they set up those pods. Every facility is different so this will give them some time to look at classrooms and the number of students and determine where those classrooms are best suited. [I am, frankly, baffled that AASD hasn’t already done this. It seems like something they should have been working on back in January. With students coming back partially at that time, the next step obviously was going to be students coming back full time. Why has the District only now started to plan for a full slate of students being in the buildings?]
Gary wanted to know how much staffing was impacted by podding. He stated that they’re all excited about increased in-person instruction, but the timeframe to get to that increased in-person learning is longer than people want. Using there’s a specific thing that ends up being the limiting factor in moving forward. What is the biggest thing that is keeping them from offering increased in-person instruction sooner than April 5? Staffing? The design of the pods? Something else?
Per Nan Bunnon, at the elementary level, there were three things. One was determining the classroom location, the second was the specialist schedules–particularly art and how that was scheduled because art has been taught virtually for 5th and 6th graders throughout the hybrid model. [I say this as someone who values art, but if providing art instruction is seriously stymying them, AASD should seriously consider just cutting art for the rest of the year. The educational gains from being back in school regularly would outweigh the drawbacks of no art instruction]. The third issue is that they want to give time for families to understand what the new model will look like for 5th and 6th graders and give them an opportunity to move from virtual to in-person or vice versa.
Gary wanted to know what the cut-off date was for students to move between models.
Nan stated that with every change in model they have opened things up again, but there hasn’t been a close date. They’ve been keeping a rolling application and looking at each individual case.
Deb Truyman stated that she agreed with Jim Clemon’s about getting 7-12 back before Spring Break.
Superintendent Baseman asked Gary if they answered his questions sufficiently.
Gary said they did. He understood classroom size and the number of students in a classroom were variables. He was wondering if there might be a need for additional paraprofessionals or teachers because things are more segmented.
Superintendent Baseman said that they were having difficulty filling their paraprofessional positions right now. Their paraprofessionals have been really helpful providing additional supervision for students. She gave the example of an educator needing to take half a class because there wasn’t a space big enough for the entire class and then the paraprofessional was available to supervise the rest of the class. The District certainly has staffing needs and they keep posting for people to help.
Gary understood it might be too soon for them to know, but he wondered if it felt like the physical space that in each of the buildings would be sufficient. Would they be able to work within the buildings or would they need to move/bus kids to locations where there is more space?
Superintendent Baseman said Nan had been working with principles to repurpose certain spaces. She said she would be remiss if she didn’t mention that AASD’s Future Needs Committee that met about a year and a half ago identified this very issue as a need; they have band lessons happening in hallways and English Learner classes happening in spaces that were never meant to be used for instruction. The pandemic has really pointed out the space needs that they have. Additions to the middle schools were one of the recommendations which would help AASD going forward. She told Jim Clemons that he could help them pass a referendum down the road. [So, we know what AASD is looking at, and the community can, no doubt, expect a referendum to give them more money sometime in the next few years.]
Deb asked if, at the next meeting, they could hear about high school students wanting to be back full time and about safety. There were some focus groups at each of the high schools and some of those students felt that while teachers are trying hard, the students aren’t always getting the help they need. “This” [which I took to mean virtual learning] is not for everybody. She reiterated that she agreed with Jim Clemon’s desire to see students back in school before Easter. She sees the numbers going down and AASD took a chance at bringing students back when the numbers were higher. She thinks now is the time to take another chance. She hopes that they can hear some kind of survey numbers from Ben Vogel from high school students–do the students really feel safe? 6 more weeks to resume in-person instruction is a long time. They’ve had a lot of letters from parents, and she thinks they owe it to their kids and stakeholders. If parents don’t want their children back in person then virtual learning is an option. But it’s time. Students have been out of school for almost a year already.
Kris Sauter expressed gratitude to everyone who’s had a hand in looking at the possibilities of increased student contact time. She appreciated Nan’s conversation regarding podding at the elementary school. Kris viewed the middle schools and high schools as more complicated–perhaps a lot more complicated–than elementary school because those students will be moving from classroom to classroom to classroom. It seemed like there’d be a lot more going into the design of that plan and more records for each pod. If a student tests positive they’ll need to follow that student’s schedule through the day, and it seemed like that would take a bit of work to put together. She also wondered if there was a number range of students they expected to be in-person at the middle and high school level.
Assistant Superintendent Polly VandenBoogart agreed that podding would look different at the middle and high school level than at the elementary level. At the elementary level they typically stay with their group all day, but at the middle and high school level they’ll have their pod in their 1st hour class, then they’ll get up and move to their second hour class and probably have a new pod. There is a chance that a positive coronavirus case at the high school level could impact 6, 7, or 8 different pods. Ben Vogel and James Huggins have been working with their building leaders to figure out how to do this to the best of their ability and not impact as many students.
Assistant Superintendent James Huggins said a significant amount of time by work groups was devoted to AASD’s safe and resilient return back in January. They worked on mapping out what that return looks like in a building, especially at the middle and high school level surrounding arrival, dismissal, and the time spent going from class to class. They mapped out procedures and followed them up with an audit. Now, similar work is needed now that they’ll be bringing more students back. Although they won’t necessarily be doubling their numbers because they’ll still have some students who choose to remain fully virtual. There is additional effort that will be needed to plan the podding cohorts and do everything they can to provide social distancing, safety, and minimize transitions as much as possible. [I apologize if I did not accurately summarize what he said. I think it’s accurate, but, honestly, he talks in such a roundabout and obtuse way that I’m routinely left doing my best to make his words make more sense than they necessarily do.]
Barry O’Connor also wanted to thank everybody for the hard work they’ve put into the distancing issue. It’s a significant challenge. Fortunately our numbers in the community have come down where it kind of diminishes some of the risk. He hopes that the kids can get back as soon as possible. [If even Barry O’Connor is hoping the kids get back as soon as possible maybe the leadership team really should try to get the 7-12 graders back before Spring Break.]
Barry then went on to make a statement regarding a comment he had made at the 02/08/2021 Board of Education meeting in which he had said that at least one Board of Education candidate was asserting that masking is not necessary and may even be harmful. Several community members viewed this comment as inappropriately political and they wrote in expressing their concerns.
I wanna address just one other thing. At, at the meeting–the last meeting–I did, uh, raise a question about face masks and distancing and whether–trying to make sure that our staff and our administrative team still was committed to those protocols and the science behind them, and your answer was a clear yes. And I can see that you’re putting that effort into it, and I’m, I’m grateful for that. I asked, uh, that question because I was made aware of comments from community members that were skeptical of the science, and we all received an email to that effect with detailed, uh, research, uh, articles and so on. Uh, and I also mentioned–and this was referred to in some of the letters, uh, a candidate for the Board shared some of those views. I did not name that person or will I do that. Uh, but that they seemed to share the view. And, true or not true I’m sorry that I mentioned this as part of the reason for my question. It was not appropriate at a Board meeting, and I’m sorry to put the Board in that light and that individual that people have, uh, ascribed it to. But I’d also like to comment now that I’m, I’m relieved to see the numbers go down in our community. It’s dramatic, and, knowing well several victims of this virus, it makes me even more grateful that this, what this community has done to reduce infection. And I don’t think people really know what produced the decline but it is certainly, uh, significant for our challenge to see that happened, and I’m really hopeful this trend continues as we safely increase student learning in-student learning. So, uh, that’s all I have to say. Uh, good work. Keep it up. And I hope we can make it work.
AASD Board of Education member Barry O’Connor at the 02/22/2021 Board of Education meeting
Jim Bowman seconded what Barry said about community, social distancing, mitigation, the continuing downward trend, and bringing it down just as far as we possibly can. He stated that the community can help with masking and social distancing and all the mitigation stuff we’ve heard so much about. They can also help by getting in line for a vaccine and pushing herd immunity low as quickly as possible.
Jim Bowman then went on to express his own inadequacy as a person working on a board at a high level, reviewing detailed implementation plans by people who are working close to the action. Much of his career has been in large corporations where that was part of life. You constantly had to review and have oversight over details for which you didn’t have specific information. It came down to trusting the people that are working with those details. He stated that he has a great deal of trust in the AASD leadership team. He’s worked with, listened to, and communicated with the people working with Judy for a number of years. He believes that he is inadequate in his ability to look into the details of what they do and make improvements. In his opinion, it’s just not possible to work at a high level and work at a detailed level at the same time. He said this was a statement of his own inadequacy. He trusts certain kinds of reports like the target dates the Board was given because he doesn’t know any better. He has no specific changes that he could make that would move those dates up as much as he might like to do that.
Deb Truyman responded to Jim’s statement and said that she wanted to say that she trusts the people. She wants to listen to the comments they’re receiving and put them out there. She thinks it’s important to hear everybody’s thinking, and as an elected official it’s important to react to people’s comments. She wasn’t going for a detailed plan, but she was presenting information that was presented to her.
Kris had a couple other questions that she thought might be addressed over the next few weeks. She knew they would be looking at how music, vocal, and band were addressed and she guessed that they would need to look at things like eating in the classroom with more individuals. She understood it’s a lot more complicated than just bringing students into the building because there’s so much more to look at. She also wondered if Covid testing of students would play a role at all. She knew it was happening at the elementary level and wondered if it would be a possibility at the middle and high school levels.
Per Polly testing is an option at the elementary level but they have not expanded it to their middle or high school levels. They are looking at potential options to support surveillance of students and what options may exist.
View the full 02/22/2021 Board of Education meeting here: https://youtu.be/F82qpN4giR0
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