By Patrick Adrian
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CLAREMONT — The Claremont School Board voted 6-1 Wednesday night to allow elementary and middle school students to resume full in-person classroom instruction starting Oct. 19 and a full return to in-person instruction for high school students when the second quarter starts on Nov. 10.
Students will still have the option to receive full remote instruction.
Under the plan, Stevens High School students will continue to follow the current hybrid instructional schedule until the end of the quarter. However, the district will stop providing bus transportation to Stevens High School students on Oct. 19, since all available buses will need to accommodate the higher volume of younger students.
Originally the board motioned to fully reopen all the schools on Monday, Oct. 5, but that motion failed by a vote of 4-3.
Superintendent Michael Tempesta said the district could reopen while still meeting the state’s safety guidelines, but he would prefer at least two to three additional weeks to prepare.
“I could have a change in staff who don’t want to work [in the building],” Tempesta told the board. “There’s going to be a change in the people who want to come back in full and change in how the cohorts are impacting what’s happening in the classes.”
The district plans to send surveys to the entire school community, possibly as early as Thursday, to identify the intentions of families in regards to learning in school or remotely and other needs such as transportation.
The bigger unknown will be potential changes in the availability of teachers and support staff, Tempesta said. Some teachers may elect not to teach in the building due to health concerns, for example. The district must also need to ensure there remain sufficient teachers to instruct the remote students, should there be a shift of students or staff to a different model.
“So if we learn tomorrow which teachers are leaving and which are staying, this will give us more time to hire people to fill those positions,” said Assistant Superintendent Donna Magoon.
The administrators also felt Oct. 5 was too soon to guarantee additional protective equipment could be secured.
Tempesta said the district would still be able to meet state safety guidelines with students attending fully in-person, though the classrooms will have to reduce the current space per student from six feet to about three or four. Additionally, students will have to return to eating in the school cafeteria. New custom made plexiglass dividers need to be ordered for cafeteria seating to protect students from airborne particles when sharing a table.
Magoon fired back at a comment by School Board member Michael Petrin, who indicated that the concerns with the school community about the novel coronavirus “are rooted in fear” more than the local situation, where the presence of the virus has been minimal to nonexistent.
“I’m by no means afraid of COVID at all,” Magoon said. “What I am afraid of is that I’m going to be forced to send students and staff into an environment that I know, without a doubt in my mind, is not safe because we do not have the supplies that we need to make it safe.”
Magoon noted earlier that the plastic protective shields for district bus drivers were ordered six weeks ago but still have not arrived.
“I don’t think we’ll have all the equipment we need by the fifth,” said Magoon, referring to Oct. 5.
The board included a condition in its approved plan that the district has the needed protective equipment prior to reopening in full.
The board also considered the request of administrators to delay the full return of Stevens High School students until the end of the first quarter, to provide staff and students a natural transition.
“A lot of students and staff I have communicated with are just getting used to this [current model],” said Stevens High School senior Prescott Herzog. “Taking this away in the middle of the quarter would be really harmful when it comes to student anxiety. We should wait until the end of the quarter, or end of the semester, so that way there would be some sort of ending.”
Petrin, who had strongly advocated for reopening the schools on Oct. 5, cast the lone vote in opposition of the Oct. 19 date.
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