St. Tammany Parish public school students in grades Pre-K through 5 will go to school in-person every day when the fall semester begins, and those in grades 6 through 12 will attend two days per week and every other Friday, school officials said Wednesday.
The new schedule was announced at a special St. Tammany Parish School Board meeting where some speakers urged a return to in-person schooling, while others pleaded with the School Board to hold off on a return to the classroom.
But the School Board sprang a change on the administration, pushing to start school after Labor Day.
Board member Elizabeth Heintz said that the resurgence of the coronavirus concerns her and she offered a motion asking the administration to negotiate a later date with the teachers union. The board voted 10-4 in favor of the motion with members Matthew Greene, Brandon Harrell, Michael Nation and James Braud voting no.
Nation said that there was nothing magical about Sept. 8 and that two or three weeks wouldn’t make a difference.
“We cannot be controlled by fear,” he said.
But other board members argued that the school system is still waiting to get the bulk of laptops needed for distance learning.
At the beginning of the meeting, Deidre Millsap of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers told the School Board that employees are fearful that returning now will be risky, and some are concerned about their own underlying health issues and those of elderly parents.
The teacher’s union conducted a survey of teachers and community members that got 15,000 responses, and 65 percent said that they are not comfortable coming back.
Tamara Murray, a school psychologist, said she’s concerned about her own health but even more concerned about her spouse, an itinerant middle school music teacher who sees around 200 students a day. “She will be exposed,” Murray said.
“How will you feel when there is the first death, or the tenth or the hundredth? How many have to be sick before we admit that in-person school was a terrible mistake?”
But parents urged the School Board to bring back traditional school and argued against a delay.
Courtney Paolillo said that a strong majority of parents and employees said that they were comfortable returning to school in a survey done by the district.
“Now is not the time to put politics over children,” she said, adding that the largest threat facing children is not the virus but their ability to be successful.
Witney Arch said that while some teachers did a good job of teaching remotely, overall the system has done an inadequate job since schools were closed in March.
Amiee Lemane, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said that the model that will be used is the one the school system laid out for Phase 2 of reopening, which is what the state is in now.
She said that lower grades have smaller classes that are more contained with one teacher or two, and students are with the same group of children all day.
Another consideration is transportation, she said, with buses limited to 50% occupancy. She said that a transportation survey will be sent out tomorrow.
Lemane said that the new virtual school, which was planned even before the coronavirus, has had 800 students commit with another 800 considering that option. She said some of those parents were waiting to see what the plan would be.
Children will have to wear masks on the bus, Lemane said, and will be screened and get temperature checks when they arrive at school.
Students in Pre-K through second grade will not have wear masks, but those in third grade and above will, she said.
The special meeting Wednesday comes after New Orleans and Jefferson Parish public schools announced their plans for the starting bell of the 2020-2021 school year. New Orleans public school leaders decided to wait until after Labor Day to have children in classrooms with online learning to start the week of Aug. 3.
In Jefferson Parish, the state’s largest school system, children in Pre-K through 5th grade will attend class in-person five days a week, while those in grades 6-12 will attend in person two days and have three days of virtual instruction on a staggered schedule. The school year there begins Aug. 12.
