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remote learning

    BACK TO SCHOOL

    Nauset High May Re-open Oct. 15

    Ventilation system repairs not as costly as feared

    By

    EASTHAM — The Nauset Regional High School ventilation system turns out not to be as bad as expected, with the majority of classrooms expected to be ready for an Oct. 15 opening, School Supt. Tom Conrad told 100 school committee members and parents during a nail-biter of a virtual meeting on Sept. 10.

    Just 10 days earlier, the superintendent had announced that schooling would have to be fully remote, after a report from the ventilation company gave the antiquated campus an “F” for ventilation.

    This news had stunned the parents of 921 students who had been preparing since early August for a hybrid plan, which had students learning virtually at home for three days each week and in person at Nauset for the other two days.

    The pandemic has altered plans repeatedly, so it was unsurprising that 100 people joined the Thursday meeting on Zoom. When Conrad revealed the news about the ventilation repairs and the new Oct. 15 opening date in the final hour of the meeting, school committee member Josh Stewart said, “You guys kind of buried the lede tonight…. I feel much better hearing that.”

    Chris Easley, chair of the regional school committee, had just finished a passionate plea to get the students together.

    “I have heard from more parents than I can tell you, and the chorus is ‘creative measures,’ ” said Easley, who lives in Wellfleet. “Finding a method to get a large group of kids together at the middle and high school is important. It is a critical part of education,” he said, “That is the priority of parents of kids in our system.”

    Mechanical Air Controls, the ventilation contractor, already has Building N ready, Conrad reported. Building A, another classroom building, is nearly ready, with new parts and fans being installed. Buildings B, C, and E are also in line to be repaired by Oct. 15. They house many classrooms, science labs, and ceramics and arts, Easley said.

    The cafeteria won’t be open to students. They will stay in their classrooms for lunch, which will either be delivered or picked up at a designated location, Easley said.

    If all goes according to plan, most of the campus will be re-opened on Oct. 15, with the exceptions of the auditorium, gym, and cafeteria, Easley added.

    Another piece of good news is that repairs to the ventilation system may not break the bank. Easley estimated the cost to be around $100,000. The school system has $50,000 already budgeted for ventilation repairs, Easley said. Though this is costly for a school that is about to undergo a complete renovation estimated at $132 million, it’s not as bad as expected, he added.

    Evidence of the stress among staff and parents was highlighted by Conrad, who told everyone during that meeting that his health was fine.

    “The rumor had been floating around that I had a heart attack,” said Conrad, who is 63. “I think my health is excellent. I did not have a heart attack, and I pray that I never do. I feel a little awkward sharing that, but that’s where I stand.”

    LEARNING AT A DISTANCE

    Scallion Plans ‘Hybrid/Outdoor’ and ‘In-person/Remote’

    Provincetown students will still not use classrooms

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The Provincetown Schools superintendent has penciled in the date of Oct. 5 for some students to return to school, but not inside the building.

    “We’re not going to jump into the hybrid that you see in [schools with] overcrowded classrooms,” said Supt. Suzanne Scallion on Sept. 9. “We’re going to do outdoors in small groups.”

    The school system started the year off remotely on Sept. 16. If Covid-19 infection rates stay low, a slow transition to in-person learning will go forward.

    Though the outdoor plan is still “in Jell-O” and requires teacher input, Scallion told the school committee she envisioned remote learning in the morning with some students coming to the school for lessons outside, starting on Oct. 5. That would “morph” into an after-school recreation program.

    The next step would be to invite all students back full-time — but still outdoors.

    “We have tents, Motta Field, and enthusiasm,” Scallion said.

    This outdoor phase could be called “hybrid/outdoor, or something,” she added.

    Eva Enos, the school committee chair who has agreed with Scallion’s plans so far, asked Scallion how to explain to the public the unusual child-care offering at the school.

    It allows for up to 25 students to be educated via computer in the gym. Adults would supervise them there, but their teachers would conduct the lessons from classrooms down the hall.

    If the kids are already in the building, why not just allow them back to the classrooms? Enos asked.

    “It’s not just child care,” Scallion said. “I like to think of it as in-person/remote learning.”

    Provincetown’s classrooms are large enough for six-foot distancing already. But the gym is much larger, she said. With 8,000 square feet and 30-foot ceilings, each child will have 400 square feet of personal space.

    “We’ll have blowers and fans on, and the doors open,” she said.—K.C. Myers

    Nauset High Will Stay Closed After All

    Report on ventilation system is ‘not pretty’

    By

    EASTHAM — Following a dismal report on the aging high school’s ventilation system, the Nauset Regional School Committee voted unanimously on Aug. 31 to keep the building closed to most students for an unknown time period.

    This is a change from a month ago, when district administrators announced a hybrid model for the Nauset Regional High School in which students would be educated in person two days a week. As of Sept. 1, the hybrid plan was still in place at the middle school, and all the elementary schools in the district were still expected to reopen for in-person learning on Sept. 16. The plans, however, could still change.

    “It bothers me that kids won’t be in the classroom,” said Ed Brookshire, an Eastham member of the regional committee.

    Supt. Tom Conrad had been trying all summer to get a report on the HVAC system from the maintenance company, Mechanical Air Controls, that has been servicing the school for years, said Chris Easley, the committee chair.

    “They have avoided us like the plague,” Easley said of the company.

    But when the report finally came, the news was “not pretty,” Easley said.

    Most of the fans, which are in individual classrooms, don’t provide a proper air exchange.

    Nauset Regional High School is in the financing stage of a $131.8 million renovation project. Voters were supposed to approve funding in the spring, but the pandemic delayed all the town meetings until fall. For the last few years, the administration has avoided major maintenance projects at the high school, knowing that it was on track to be renovated, Easley said. More maintenance funding went to the middle school.

    “We don’t expect people to go into an unsafe building,” Easley said.

    The school committee meets next on Sept. 9 to discuss a report on which of the high school buildings may be salvageable with fixes to the ventilation system, Easley said. But for now, the plan is to educate all students at home. Other buildings in district towns are also being considered as potential classrooms, he said.

    Afternoon sports still begin Sept. 18, according to an email from High School Principal Chris Ellsasser to parents on Sept. 1.

    And those students with high needs will be invited back to work in person with teachers in the classrooms with proper ventilation, the email stated.

    For students and teachers, the focus has shifted to developing a decent remote learning system.

    Along with attendance being enforced and work being graded as in regular school, Nauset will provide extra assistance for this new form of learning.

    There will be a “support strategy designed to use day-to-day data (attendance, grades, wellness checks, late/missing work) to initiate early intervention for students who show signs they might be struggling,” wrote Ellsasser.

    “Our opening days of school will focus on developing classroom cultures and relationships and showing students how to learn using our remote model,” he continued.

    There will be “instructional videos” and “support/information meetings for families” he added.

     

    LEARNING

    Nauset PreK-8th Grade Plan: Back in Buildings Sept. 16

    Nauset High will try a hybrid of remote and in-person classes

    By

    EASTHAM — Nauset Regional High School students will attend school twice a week and stay home for remote learning on the other three days, while the plan for preschool through eighth grade in the district — Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster — is to return to classrooms five days a week beginning Wednesday, Sept. 16.

    Unlike in the spring, when online learning was limited and there were no grades, courses will be graded and attendance enforced, Supt. Tom Conrad told members of the five school committees during a Zoom meeting on Aug. 6.

    The four-hour meeting had about 100 participants and was broken up when a bat entered Eastham Town Hall and dive-bombed Conrad and Nauset Regional School Committee Chair Judy Lindahl.

    The reopening of the district schools includes a requirement that all students — even those in preschool — wear masks, though there will be mask breaks: designated times when students can be outdoors with a plan for safe distancing from each other. Children will have assigned seats on buses and in classrooms.

    The eight-day-late start will give teachers time to prepare for a challenging year, said Conrad.

    High school educators must be prepared to teach both remotely and in person at the same time. All staff will add policing social distancing and mask-wearing to their job descriptions.

    Meanwhile, the Cape and Islands teachers’ unions are opposing a full return to classrooms, and pushback came from some school committee members from all four towns. Martha Gordon, of the Wellfleet committee, asked why schools will return to business as usual when everyone else in town government still works from home.

    Conrad responded, “We have depended on information from a variety of medical directors and they are going to be giving us additional information, but they are of the opinion that, if we can follow the guidelines as discussed, our staff and students will be safe.”

    Of all the schools in the district, only the aging high school is too small to allow all the students to return with the minimum three feet between desks required by the state, said Principal Chris Ellsasser.

    How small is it? Only four sets of bathrooms are currently monitored and usable in the entire campus serving 900 students, Greg Levasseur, chair of the Nauset School Building Committee, told the Independent. The school district will be asking voters to pay for the renovation of the buildings at upcoming town meetings.

    Parallel Processing

    High school students will be separated into two groups based on grade level, Ellsasser said.

    One group will attend school in person on Mondays and Tuesdays, everyone will work at home on Wednesdays, and the other cohort will come to school Thursdays and Fridays. Wednesday will serve as a cleaning and disinfecting day, with few students in the school. The exception will be “high needs students,” who are learning English, on individual education plans, or have certain socioeconomic needs. They will be allowed to attend school on campus four or even five days a week, with each case to be decided individually, Ellsasser said.

    Ellsasser said remote learners will follow the same schedule as students participating in the hybrid model. Everyone will attend four 80-minute classes each day, whether in person or online.

    The classes will be live, so remote learners will watch their teachers as they teach students in person.

    Ellsasser said the school is trying to have the online experience and the hybrid experience be synchronous.

    “When friends who are at home are going to lunch, you’re going to lunch,” he said. “When you’re on a mask break, the other students are on a screen break. So the experiences mirror each other.”

    Either/Or for Young Students

    Hybrid models were not recommended at the middle school or elementary schools. Children will have the option to attend school five days a week or learn remotely five days a week.

    The middle school will switch from hour-long blocks to five 100-minute classes each day, with breaks in-between, according to Principal Julie Kobold. She said the school is doing away with the use of lockers.

    Google Classroom and Google Meet will be the platforms for online learning at the high school and middle school.

    At the elementary level, kindergarten through grade 2 students will use a platform called Seesaw, while students in grades 3 to 5 will use Google Classroom, according to Wellfleet Elementary Principal Mary Beth Rodman.

    “Students working remotely will still be submitting assignments and receiving feedback,” Rodman said.

    An initial survey of families received 1,269 responses districtwide, with a large majority — more than four out of five — wanting to return to in-person learning. Just 182 families (14 percent) preferred a remote learning plan, Conrad said. Five percent were unsure.

    Eleven families said they still need internet access while 82 families said they need increased bandwidth to be able to participate. Twenty percent said they would need child care should a remote or hybrid plan move forward, Conrad said.

    Many What Ifs

    Cape Cod has not seen a major increase in Covid-19-positive tests despite an influx of visitors, said state Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro, who is on the Cape Cod Reopening Task Force. Following a small bump after July 4, new positive cases have numbered between 3 and 10 per day throughout Barnstable County, Cyr said Aug. 6.

    But the Cape and Islands Educator Action Network, which includes Cape teachers’ unions, wrote a letter arguing that reopening should be phased in slowly.

    “I’m extremely sympathetic to families needing child care, but we also want all kids and staff brought back in the safest way possible,” network president Cheri Armstrong, a Monomoy middle school teacher, told the Independent. “For us, we have to be sure that it is safe. And that’s the MTA’s slogan, ‘Only when it’s safe.’ ”

    Students’ reactions reflect fear of reopening combined with extreme dislike of remote education.

    “Whatever measures they can take, there will be a lot of issues,” Will Mulholland of Chatham, president of the Nauset class of 2022, told the Independent. “My friends are concerned for their family members, so people are scared. On the other hand, a lot of people want to get back to being in contact with their friends. For me, remote learning was a struggle. It was not the same thing. But you have to weigh knowing that the community is safe and moving on with our lives.”

    School committee members asked how the schools would react to a positive case, and at what point the schools would be shut again. Conrad said he was awaiting further guidance on that, but reiterated that there are many unknowns.

    “The one thing we would all agreed on,” he said, “what we thought we knew today, will change tomorrow.” That’s something he says he’s getting used to. “We were taken aback by the number of families who wanted to go back to school,” Conrad said. “We have to be nimble and shift.”

    FROM A DISTANCE

    Eastham Elementary Works to Maintain Connections

    A parent group organizes interactions that matter to kids and adults

    By

    EASTHAM — Elementary students and teachers won’t be returning to school this year, but the community is trying to help make the most of the situation.

    Eastham Elementary drive-by greetings
    From drive-by greetings — this one was at First Encounter Beach on April 28 — to pen pal plans, parents of elementary school students in Eastham are finding ways for teachers, children, and families to connect while they wait out the need for distance learning. (Photos Nancy Bloom)

    There were cheerful waves and a few wistful tears at the drive-by get-together staged by the Eastham Elementary School Parent Group on April 28. Now, the group is working with the council on aging to organize a pen pal program that puts students and seniors in touch with each other. Meanwhile, the school superintendent is looking into plans to keep students engaged — and active — over the summer.

    Monica Keefe-Hess, a member of the parent group who has a daughter in fourth grade, said the group’s president, Ashley Foster, introduced the pen pal idea. Since Keefe-Hess works at the COA, she is helping coordinate the project.

    The senior center has done intergenerational programming in the past, Keefe-Hess said, including a twice-monthly visit by elementary students in the “family support choir.” Eastham Elementary students also often participate in lunches at the COA and dinners at the Elks Lodge. “They miss those interactions,” Keefe-Hess said. “My daughter would come to the senior center and sing and she loved it.”

    The parent group’s goal is to keep those interactions going. They are expecting a delivery of plants from Potted Plants for Seniors of Cape Cod. Students will write a letter to a senior that will be delivered with a plant to their home. The seniors will be encouraged to write a letter back, starting a pen pal exchange. Keefe-Hess said she has 11 students and 11 seniors interested so far. “The kids are already writing about some of the things they’re doing,” she said.

    While academic issues — namely, how to introduce new material and how to integrate arts into distance learning during these final weeks of the school year — were the focus at a school committee meeting held via Zoom on April 27, school officials are clearly grateful for these extracurricular efforts. Following that meeting, in a May 4 letter to families, Elementary School Principal Bill Crosby named “meaningful connections with educators and peers” along with “opportunities for enrichment, exercise, and play” as, at this point, educational priorities right up there with language arts and math lessons.

    Supt. Tom Conrad said the school administration is looking at summer school programs for students who feel like there was a gap in their learning. The administration is also considering how to integrate play and physical activity into those activities.

    “Ideally, it would partner up with the recreation programs,” Conrad said.

    The idea, he said, would be for kids to have the chance to participate in recreation activities, go inside for 45 minutes of math, then go back out to play.

    “But I can’t tell you that the recreation programs are going to run this summer — we’ll have to watch to see what the decision is for that,” he said.

    Conrad has his eye on reinforcements for special activities for the season. He said that he’s reached out to a group of retired teachers who may be willing to help teach kids over the summer.

    “I believe I could get up to 50 retired teachers who would be willing to volunteer their time,” he said. No detailed plans have been settled yet, though.

    Meanwhile, remote learning continues. Keefe-Hess said each morning Eastham Elementary students participate in a remote morning meeting to interact with their friends and teachers. But students are feeling the loss of not being physically together.

    “They’re missing their friends,” she said.

     

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