Pictured above: South Hadley High School in South Hadley, MA. Photo courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.
By Katie Goss ‘23
Staff Writer
In late January, the South Hadley School Committee approved a phased-in learning process set to begin on Feb. 22. On this date, high needs students, or middle and high school students whose parents are essential workers or need critical child care, will start to return to school for four days a week.
These students will attend Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with Wednesday being a remote learning day to clean and sanitize the school buildings. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, all general student populations at both Plains and Mosier elementary schools will start a hybrid model of learning beginning March 15. On March 1, Plain Middle School kindergarten and first-grade students will return using this hybrid model.
A major reason for getting students back into the school building is that many parents have noted their children are struggling with remote learning. On a school committee meeting held on Feb. 17, students and parents spoke out about wanting to return to in-person learning and sports. Parents spoke out about their children’s grades and mental health declining because of remote learning, and although they noted the severity of the pandemic, they maintained that their children need to return to in-person learning.
“The reality is that this is not working for a lot of our kids. … We are receiving letters from families every day that are literally at a breaking point, and we have to listen to those as well,” Christine Phillips, a school committee member, said, according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
In the same school committee meeting, the members voted to approve in-person sports for the fall season.
Despite this, both teachers and staff have voiced their concerns about returning to in-person classes, even in a hybrid model. The heating, ventilation and air conditioning requirements are not properly up to the guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, they are expected to meet regulations in every building by March 1. Students, teachers and staff have been told they will be placed in buildings that meet these CDC regulations. Still, some would rather wait until all the HVAC work is done before starting a hybrid model.
Larisa Millman posted on a Mount Holyoke Facebook group page to spread a message from her friend, a teacher at a local South Hadley school, who wanted to reach out to Mount Holyoke students about this.
“Teachers are in phase 2 of MA’s [Massachusetts] vaccine plan, which means we could do this much more safe[l]y if we waited for like a month [to return to in-person learning],” the post stated.
Another issue that teachers and staff have posed is that the recent decrease in the COVID-19 infection rate correlated with Mount Holyoke students returning to campus. Because students on campus must be tested twice a week and follow strict social distancing and mask guidelines, their infection rates have been incorporated into the district as a whole and have decreased the overall percentage. This leaves the district with falsely optimistic data.
Millman’s Facebook post said, “Recently, our rate sunk to 2.85 [percent], which seems promising. However, this drop directly followed the return of Mount Holyoke students to campus. South Hadley is a very small town, so Mohos make a significant difference in our demographics.”
According to Charles Miles, a school committee member, there has been a decrease in the district’s overall positivity rate since Feb. 9, leaving the rate at 1.46 percent. However, when they excluded Mount Holyoke students, that positivity rate rose to 4.64 percent. This altered rate excluding Mount Holyoke students still showed a decreased rate when compared to previous weeks in the district.
Another issue discussed in the meeting was the number of cases recorded from students and staff who are remote as well as in person. As of right now, those numbers are being displayed together. At the Feb. 17 meeting, a parent asked if the numbers could be split up so everyone knows how many cases are physically at the school and how many are from remote students and staff.
Besides the standard guidelines — everyone in the building wearing masks, social distancing and sanitizing between classes and before and after school — other guidelines have been set in place. If a school nurse cannot attend school and a substitute nurse cannot be found, then that day will be a remote learning day.
Another precaution teachers are taking is “self-testing” themselves every day when coming into school. They will record if they have any symptoms or feel unwell in order to help with contact tracing if needed in the future. Students, however, are not self-testing and have signed a form to ensure that if they wake up feeling ill, whether their symptoms are COVID-19 related or not, that they will stay home and alert the school.
The South Hadley school district is set to reopen Monday, Feb. 22, with these precautions in mind.