LACEY – Superintendent Vanessa Clark recently outlined the school system’s return to live instruction this month which is starting with its higher grades.
Board of Education members approved a plan that will bring the school district into phase II and III of its return toward a regular school schedule. It will allow for live instruction, five days a week. Having full days of live classes, however, instead of an abbreviated day, would occur in phase IV, according to Clark.
The new phase provides the opportunity to offset disruptions to learning opportunities and extracurricular activities that might have resulted from the closure of schools to in-person instruction since the spring of 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
As of March 8, Lacey Township High School and Middle School will transition to four hour a day, five-day in-person instruction. According to the PowerPoint presentation Clark made during a recent Board of Education meeting, “students will follow the same hourly schedule as we have under the A/B Hybrid model. Lunch will still be offered as a grab-and-go and social distancing requirements will be maintained to the greatest extent practicable.”
Phase III will begin on March 22 and would also include students at Mill Pond, Forked River and Cedar Creek schools. Students will be remaining in their assigned cohorts for the entire school day, limiting interaction between different groups of students.
The entire school district will then be on a four-hour school day mirroring the existing early dismissal schedule with lunch offered as a grab-and-go in all buildings.
As to when Phase IV would be implemented with full day hours, Clark said, “we don’t know yet. We can’t do it right now.”
She explained the reason full day instruction cannot occur is that lunch service would need to be provided. “We are required by the state to provide in-school lunch and we know that under the state’s current executive orders, our schools are limited as to whether they can use their cafeteria because of taking down the masks to eat and so forth.”
Clark also noted another reason why that wasn’t possible. “Due to the schedule required to make our multi-tiered bussing work, all our schools would need to need to operate on the same number of hours. That is an area we explored.”
“Could we play around with the school hours to see if we could extend the four-hour day to perhaps a five- or five-and-a-half-hour day? Our schedules are so tight with regard to busing that it is a real challenge so unfortunately the answer is no,” Clark added.
She said the early dismissal schedule would be posted to the school district’s website during the period of transition. It was also noted that the school district currently contact-traces its buses now in regards to the coronavirus. Some of the buses do not have students sitting six feet apart because transportation is such an issue.
Clark said there would be more students on buses if and when that phase of the return begins. “We will be taking mitigating steps to ensure that we keep one student to a seat or siblings on a seat together and we have yet to see how many students will be returning. We will be skipping seats where we can and obviously continue to wear our masks and the physical barriers.”
The superintendent said that if conditions warrant “pulling back and revert to the hybrid A-B model we will do that or if we have to close the schools for a short period or close the whole district for a short period, we will do that.”
It was noted that the region in which Lacey’s school district was included in was listed as orange which was showing a lesser degree of COVID-19 positive cases. The current plans would not have gone forward if the district and region had been headed into the red zone which has more coronavirus positive cases.
Resident Darlene Price said her son is on full remote instruction due to a health issue and that the consistency of that particular model for him has worked. “We are trying all we can to keep our family safe. I am considered the weak link because I am the only that leaves the house to go to work and come home.”
Clark said the district would be sending out parents another survey so that families can select a five day in person instruction model or go full remote. “We will be providing timelines and we will be doing that by school so that principals can get an accurate count and can begin planning for the return of our students.”
Parent Jacqueline Hardy said her daughter Zoey had a question for the superintendent. The 4th grade student from the Lanoka Harbor Elementary School is currently receiving instruction remotely as she has a heart condition. She said she was representing all remote students.
“It is not easy being a full remote student. Right now, my schedule is working for me. My fear for when students go back five days and cohorts no longer exist (of staggered live and remote learning sessions) what will happen to my a.m. and p.m. meetings? How will my educational needs be met,” Zoey asked Clark.
The superintendent responded, “Zoey I completely understand your question and we are certainly going to take steps that your instruction is not interrupted. We will probably have to make changes to your schedule to accommodate students attending five days a week but I can certainly tell you that the education you are currently receiving and the level of education you are receiving will not change,” Clark said.
