BUCKLAND — While Mohawk Trail Regional School District School Committee members echoed during their online meeting Wednesday no solution is perfect for every family, the committee approved pursuing a hybrid model of education starting Jan. 11.
Based on the plan presented at Wednesday’s meeting and during a prior virtual town hall, preschool through second grade will enter Phase 1 of the hybrid model on Jan. 11, while students in grades three through 12 will enter Phase 1 on Jan. 19. However, these dates depend on local COVID-19 case rates as well as the school district’s ability to secure sufficient staffing.
“This allows us to assess the potential holiday surge to make sure we allow that 14-day period of quarantine for travel, and also in case there’s been any spread during that time,” Mohawk Trail Regional School Principal Marisa Mendonsa said of the start dates.
Superintendent Sheryl Stanton emphasized that the hybrid model can only move forward if the necessary positions can be filled. The district needs to fill 2½ open teaching and psychologist positions, six paraprofessional positions and one custodial/grounds position.
Additionally, the district must cover leaves of absence that teachers and staff may request. So far, Stanton said, eight teachers and four paraprofessionals have requested leaves of absence. The estimated cost to cover those requests, as well as provide daily nurse coverage, is $199,700.
The district also needs two hall and bathroom monitors, three paraprofessionals and isolation room supervision. Stanton believes the cost for this additional staffing will be about $76,000.
“We are able to use some of the savings we’re seeing in this year’s budget because we haven’t been using subs up to this point,” Stanton said. “We have some positions that aren’t filled, so we do have some salaried savings.”
Given the positions that need to be staffed, Stanton said the district wants to “make sure we’re not promising what we can’t provide.”
“We are very hopeful and we will do everything we can to fill those positions so we can staff the model,” she said. “But there may come a time when we aren’t able to fill those positions and have to revert to remote instruction.”
If staffing can be secured, the hybrid model would involve preschoolers coming to school in the morning, while families in the remote plan would get their education in the afternoon, said Hawlemont Regional Elementary School Principal Lindsay Rodriguez. As for kindergarten to second grade, students in the hybrid model will receive in-person education from 1 to 3 p.m. on four days of the week.
In grades three to six, Rodriguez continued, students will be divided into cohorts. Any grade levels with cohorts small enough — about eight to 10 children spaced 6 feet apart — will attend in-person classes four days a week. All students would learn remotely on Wednesdays.
Director of Pupil Services Leann Loomis said schedules of students with higher needs will largely stay the same.
“For the most part, these students will all be in school for the same amount of time,” Loomis explained.
At Mohawk Trail Regional School, Mendonsa said in-person classes will be held from 7:45 to 10:45 a.m. four days per week. Remote students will get initial instruction in the first two classes of the day, then receive an assignment to work on while students in the hybrid model are in their in-person classes.
“Some educators may choose to bring (remote) students back in for a debrief at the end of class,” she noted.
The day’s third class — following lunch and travel home for the hybrid students — is remote for everyone. Virtual office hours round out the school day.
Stanton clarified that in-person students will take their lunches home, while curbside pickup will continue for remote students. She said it’s important to teach students to wait until they are home to eat, rather than removing their masks to eat with their peers.
Having in-person instruction in the afternoon at the elementary school level resulted in questions from families, Stanton said, as well as disapproval from Charlemont parent Amy Coates.
“In my meeting with the principal and the superintendent, they both told me … it’s not an ideal time, 1 to 3, for educational purposes,” Coates said. “I just don’t see how you could pass a Return to Learn hybrid plan knowing that this is not the best time for children to learn.”
Coates added she thinks the plan “should be revamped,” stating that having students receive only two hours of in-person instruction per day is “deplorable.”
In response, Stanton explained having remote instruction in the morning allows all students to be learning together, albeit virtually.
“We’ve created the culture of the classroom, the relationships of the classroom, in the remote part of the day,” she said. The remote instruction sets up the rest of day that involves small group activities and asynchronous lessons. Then, in-person lessons in the afternoon offer “problem-based learning or other types of activities to help students engage … to leverage when they’re remote again.”
Ultimately, the hybrid plan received a mixed response from School Committee members, families and staff. Out of more than 530 family responses to a survey, 53 percent said they intend to opt for the hybrid model while 47 percent plan to stay remote. Among 117 staff responses, 60 percent feel remote learning best supports the students, while 23 percent think the hybrid model is best.
“Just by those numbers, we’re not going to find a solution that works for everyone,” commented School Committee member Suzanne Crawford, who voted in favor of the hybrid plan.
Members worried about the ability to provide staffing, and some felt a Jan. 11 start date was too soon.
“I think we’ll see (COVID-19 case) numbers spike back up,” said School Committee member Toby Bassett, noting how cases have risen following Thanksgiving, and with more holidays on the way.
The plan, Stanton said, does involve regular check-ins on March 1, April 7 and May 10. Depending on guidance from the Department of Public Health (DPH) and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), she said the plan could change, but would require staff negotiations. School Committee Chair Martha Thurber said the teachers’ union is expected to vote on the hybrid plan on Dec. 16.
Others, like committee member Paris Finley, supported the plan for its ability to provide continuity.
“The plan I want is the plan that allows us to move to hybrid and to be able to move back quickly if we have to, and even to move to hybrid again in a couple of months if that’s possible,” he said. “I want something that’s going to be able to ebb and flow. … I think this plan will hold that piece together.”
The hybrid model also received support from Randy Crochier, regional health agent with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments’ Cooperative Public Health Service.
“Mohawk’s plans, based on the (COVID-19 case) numbers where they’re at right now, make sense,” he said, adding that the district can pivot back to remote if needed.
With the hybrid plan receiving majority approval, Stanton said the school district will register families between now and Dec. 16, then divide the students into cohorts and schedule busing by Jan. 6.
Reach Shelby Ashline at 413-772-0261, ext. 270 or sashline@recorder.com.