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Newport schools works to meet hurdles posed by pandemic

By Patrick Adrian [email protected]
NEWPORT — Three weeks into the new school year, the Newport School District continues to adapt to staffing challenges posed by the novel coronavirus pandemic, as an unanticipated spike in student enrollments this fall has increased the demand for remote instruction.

With over 87 new student enrollments this school year, including many to grades K-12, the Newport School District recently had to hire an additional elementary school teacher to meet the instructional demands of students learning remotely, according to Superintendent Brendan Minnihan.

“At this moment we have three teachers and are going on four at the elementary level,” Minnihan told the Eagle Times on Tuesday.

Minnihan also said that a new middle school language arts and social studies teacher will join the district on Monday, to take over instruction in those subjects for remote middle school students.

The Newport Middle School hire expects to provide some relief to principal Thomas Ronning, whose remote instructional team was short staffed to begin the year. The administration had to hold interviews with the candidates over Labor Day weekend to expedite a hire.

Ronning himself has had to assume teaching duties during this period, Minnihan confirmed.

The importance of planning

The Newport School District, with a total enrollment of approximately 1,000 students in grades pre-K to 12, is the largest district in Sullivan County to open the 2020-2021 with full in-person instruction. The district’s plan provides all families a choice of either fully in-person or fully remote instruction, with the remote instruction being administered by designated district teachers.

With neighboring districts like Claremont currently considering a similar model as Newport’s, the Newport district might arguably teach some valuable lessons in preparing for the unexpected.

A key, lesser known detail to Newport’s plan was that the in-person option would be limited to classroom capacity.

Minnihan said the capacity by classroom varies but the district has aimed to have a spread of five feet per student inside the buildings. The class sizes currently average around 15 to 20 students.

Minnihan said about 80% of Newport students are attending school in-person and about 20% are fully remote.

Some of the newly enrolled students, particular at the elementary level, had to be placed in the remote program because the classrooms for their grade were at full capacity.

At the Newport School Board meeting on Sept. 10, Richards Elementary principal Phil Banios indicated that the elementary remote would likely need to be split into more manageable sizes.

“Even though we have three full-time, experienced and high-quality teachers their student numbers are high” Banios said. “We may need to [eventually] break the students into smaller groups because 20-plus students are a lot to handle in a remote model.”

Minnihan said that Newport’s remote teachers administer instruction to students via virtual meeting technology like Zoom. When using this platform with a large cohort, it is harder for the teacher to attend to individual student needs or keep students fully engaged.

Minnihan said he doesn’t know what spawned the sudden increase in student enrollment.

“I was really worried about that [initially], but we’ve been very diligent about checking residency verifications of new enrollments,” Minnihan said.

But the decision to deliver remote instruction through in-district teachers arguably left Newport more prepared to handle the increased demand than districts that initially hoped to place their remote students in Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS), a New Hampshire online program.

Minnihan explained that many districts received the impression from the state guidelines that their schools could provide remote instruction primarily through VLACS.

“Some districts told their students they could either come in for in-person instruction or sign up for VLACS,” Minnihan said.

VLACS, despite its expansion in recent years to include elementary grade levels, was overwhelmed by the statewide enrollment numbers and had to close enrollment to many families.

“As of Monday we can teach all the core learning areas through our own teachers,” Minnihan said.

Minnihan said the district will still use VLACS for students seeking a special elective outside the district’s program of study.

Districts might also take a cue from Newport on being patient with the learning curve to implementing its model.

“There are certainly challenges with every model,” Minnihan said. “I get the frustrations but we’re trying to be cognizant of the needs of the community, [including] that people need to be able to work . . . We just ask our families to work with us as we move along and try to do what we need to make things work.”

Minnihan, who had visited Newport Middle High School on Tuesday, said that high school teachers reported feeling more comfortable in the third week of the new system.

“Every new day is a win,” he said.

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