Stefanos N. Kales is a professor at Harvard Medical School & Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
Newton students are receiving little to no “in person” instruction at NPS. Middle school is 100% remote until at least November, as are high schools for the “foreseeable future”. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) recognize that remote schooling creates a certainty of psychosocial, educational and physical harms to students. Therefore, AAP, WHO and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) recommend a 3-foot minimum distance between masked children’s desks to balance adequate infection control and feasible classroom logistics. Thus, allowing schools to open. Likewise, the CDC permits masked students in a classroom to be 3 feet apart. On June 25, Superintendent Fleishman encouraged Newton families “to read the [DESE] Guidance for detailed information that we will be utilizing to develop our plans.”
Somehow, Newton Public Schools (NPS) subsequently refused to follow the science and DESE Guidance and is therefore, unable to offer any “full-time, in-person” options.
Publicly, NPS attributed its deviation from DESE Guidance to Newton’s Department of Health and Human Services (NHHS). On July 21, Superintendent David Fleishman described “the thoughtful guidance that we have received … about … maintaining 6 feet of distance… We’re going to follow this guidance from NHHS. That means … we cannot fully open with all students in the building.” On July 31, NPS stated, “Please note that NHHS now recommends a minimum of 6′-0″ between student desks, making it impossible to return to school at full capacity.”
But internal emails reveal that Superintendent Fleishman was directly involved in HHS’ decision-making and even managed NHHS’s messaging.
- On Friday, July 10, NHHS Commissioner Deborah Youngblood emailed Superintendent Fleishman to set up a meeting, with the first agenda item: “We need to decide … What [is] the appropriate physical distancing measurement (3 vs 6 ft).” (Neither is a medical doctor.) According to the email, Dr. Karen Sadler, NHHS’s only contracted school physician was not included in this meeting.
- By July 14, Superintendent Fleishman emailed NHHS and offered to “create” slides for NHHS. He wrote: “We can create a couple of slides for you so you can discuss your risk reduction pillars and the 6 feet distancing.”
- On July 20, NHHS’s Youngblood confirmed Superintendent Fleishman’s role in another email: “David [Fleishman] emphasized again that the very most important message to say strongly, we recc using 6 feet of distance and in our discussions with the sup that’s the plan for NPS.”
Meanwhile, Newton leadership was ignoring the advice of public health experts and medical doctors:
- On July 17, after the 6-foot decision was already made, NHHS heard from Dr. Sadler. Consistent with public health consensus, Dr. Sadler wrote “It is possible it will be >/= 3 feet for children and 6 for adults.”
- The same day, Mayor Fuller emailed Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Harvard Professor of Medicine and Chief of Infectious Disease at MGH: “On a policy issue, we are leaning to 6’ of separation in our classrooms rather than the 3’ that DESE/WHO allow. Thoughts?”
- Walensky’s reply was immediate and unequivocal: “if people are masked it is quite safe and much more practical to be at 3 feet.”
- Mayor Fuller immediately forwarded this email to NHHS’s Youngblood.
- Nevertheless, NPS and NHHS ignored the 3-foot guidance of AAP, DESE and WHO as supported by NHHS’s own Dr. Sadler, and Dr. Walensky of MGH.
NPS’s decision to ignore the 3-foot expert recommendation prevented Newton from fully opening schools. Newton owes taxpayers, parents and children some explanations:
Why did NHHS ignore the advice of national and international medical/public health experts, and ignore suggestions from Dr. Walensky and even NHHS’s own medical staff (Dr. Karen Sadler) that consistently recommended the 3-foot minimum? Why was Superintendent Fleishman involved in the decision making, but apparently never disclosed his own role in the process?
Why did NPS fail to follow the DESE Guidance as it originally promised? Why did NPS reject the world-class recommendations of AAP, CDC, WHO and other experts?
Newton parents and taxpayers deserve the answers.
NS should follow the science and adopt the more practical 3-foot guidance that will allow it to safely and fully open schools.
You can read here our full letter to City Council and the accompanying email documentation.
The answer is a simple one. The teacher’s union got to the decision makers, and convinced them not to follow the science or the recommendations of the American Pediatric Society, and the leading public health experts, including Dr. Jha of Harvard (now Brown) and Dr. Fauci. All of these well regarded experts said schools in places like Newton, with low prevalence of the virus, can and should open. Trump’s early July tweet to “OPEN THE SCHOOLS” made matters much worse, and galvanized the union and their allies in Newton government. Schools are open in similarly situated suburbs in Connecticut and NY. We have done our children and their families a huge disservice by keeping the high schools closed “for the foreseeable future.
As MA has its biggest spike since May, as Boston goes back to “red” status, as nearly half the states in the country have climbing Covid rates – all a few weeks after schools went back, maybe there’s something to be said for Newton’s more cautious approach.
@Jerry- Newton is back down into the green risk level, Massachusetts is one of the states with lowest positivity at this point, and we may never see a highly effective vaccine. We need a plan to get back into in-person learning. Not back to what it was before, but a plan to start to get back to learning in the classroom.
We have a plan to re-open schools safely. Fleishman, NPS and the SC have refused to listen to science in many ways It is from the NTA and it include 1) building readiness, 2) testing 3) contact tracing and 4) quarantine procedures.
It was ONLY because of the NTA and angry parents that Fleishman/NPS & SC relented and inspected the HVAC… in September. Maybe if this had been done in May, we would be reopening more classrooms.
Testing is not being incorporated, unlike our neighoring town Wellesley. Again, this was an ask by the NTA that has been ignored.
The original NPS plan had a map of testing sites for the plan.
Worcester demanded and got $10M for their reopening plan. Why didnt’ we ask for more? We got $7.8M Cares money but I believe it is not all for schools.
Contact tracing — every single private school that is open is using an app that parents and kids must fill out every night. It works. The honor code is higher among kids than adults I hear.
Last but not least,having two “megaplex” HS with 2000 at capacity populations, just makes it impossible to have social distancing n the hallways and classrooms, we just don’t have enough room or “extra” super specialized teachers hanging out in the middle of September during a pandemic.
I signed my child up for Hybrid HS but completely stupport only a SAFE return to school, proposed by the experts in pedagogy and a group of experts (teachers) who truly care about the safety of all inside the building.
Including my child.
I am a parent btw not a teacher.
If’s too bad NPS and Fleishman did not work together with the teachers over the summer on the NTA plan to open the schools safely — like other cities have done using the basic components of building safey, testing avail and protocols, contract tracing and quarantine procedures.
The vaccines are coming as you should know, in healthcare. Hopeing we can reopen in the Spring.
Since when is a teachers union deciding what is needed to “safely” reopen? Why does this even make sense to anyone? Is the NTA a public health institution? Are teachers medical doctors? Epidemiologists?
Enough already.
Outcome aside, the process was alarming. This goes beyond NPS. Is this how we want HHS to be run? Why would anyone trust HHS? Is this the way our city should be run?
Early October and the high school kids have no plan to return. The City Councilors asked Fleishman and the School Committee if they needed money to open the schools, and the response was no.
Money is needed to test and repair the ventilation at the schools.
Money is needed for testing (teachers, staff, students).
Money is needed to hire more IT professionals and get an app for families to complete every day. Many private companies require it before employees report to work daily. The honor system stinks around here. Ask any parent, student, teacher or school nurse and you will hear stories of students reporting to school sick (fever, stomach bug, ear infection, etc) because the student “couldn’t miss X” or a parent “couldn’t miss Y.”
If we do not fund ventilation and testing, NPS will not return to school until there is a vaccine.
We need people to stop saying it isn’t safe, and figure out a plan (strategic and financial) to return to school safely.
Even the elementary school plan feels very cobbled together. The delayed in person start date just seemed to be to buy more time, then these half days seem to exist just because they haven’t figured out how to handle lunch yet and it’s extraordinarily burdensome on me as a working mom. Now they’re saying that the kids need to bundle up because they’re going to need to keep the windows open even when it’s cold. I’m not campaigning for full day in person and I think hybrid is way safer, but their hybrid plan for elementary school right now is pretty half assed.
Kim-you state “The vaccines are coming as you should know, in healthcare. Hopeing we can reopen in the Spring.” I think we all need to understand what impact a potential vaccine may or may not have on school reopening. While the data appear to be positive based on the Moderna and Pfizer trials moving forward through interim analyses, the bar for efficacy in the Moderna trial is 60% and the FDA’s guidance is at least 50% for approval. So even if FDA approves a vaccine, it may be as little as 50% effective in adults.
Even if one of the two vaccines from Moderna or Pfizer is approved, the vaccine will not be available to children under 18. Neither study included a pediatric population, so we will need these companies to start and finish pediatric trials, which typically start after approval in the adult population and take much longer to complete, before it is available for children. So my question is….IF a vaccine is approved and IF the effectiveness is ~60% and no children are able to receive it, how will the discussion about returning to in-person classes be any different? I fear it won’t.
As Newton Mom said, why didn’t DF ask for more money from the State like Worcester? His first reopening plan was wholly inadequate on all fronts. He bears this failure as much as the virus.
Btw wastewater testing can show virus 7 days before symptoms and is being used to great success. Cheap and easily accessible testing for students and teachers is one of the keys to a successful school opening but it costs money.
Re vaccine, even if it can only be used on teachers, that is one foot forward?
It is a debacle. Why is it the NTA’s decision? The NTA has provided no metrics as to when they will teach. Maybe in years when Covid is gone? Follow science and not fear. The Mayor and Fleishman failed the 12000 students in Newton. Look at Lexington HS it is larger than Newton High Schools and they have a fluid plan. Do your jobs School Committee, Mayor and Superintendent and open the schools. Will the lag this has caused in property values speak to The Mayor? Why was Fleishman’s contract renewed? We left school in spring to flatten the curve. The curve is flattened bring the kids back to school. Unreal
Do you all want to get Covid for Christmas? Open the schools and Santa will provide.
Patrick is correct. A vaccine is unlikely to be a cure all. It will probably help. But we will, in all likelihood, still be in a pandemic this time next year. School planning cannot be done with the assumption that everything is back to normal in a few months. See this: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/25/how-covid-19-pandemic-ends-421122
Also, if this post is accurate, NPS is ignoring the advice of medical experts when opting for 6 feet + masks instead of 3 feet + masks. What happened to making decisions guided by science?
You’re all missing the point. None of the larger school systems have sufficient staffing to run two separate and distinct models: a hybrid and a remote model.
All school systems will need a remote option for students and teachers who can’t work in an enclosed space until this nightmare has passed. That becomes more complex with larger school systems, which are – more complex. This is not just a Newton problem; it’s a problem everywhere. In NYC, the mayor just announced that the schools are reopening, despite the fact that they’re short 4,500 teachers. How nutty is that? In another local community, the remote model is its largest elementary school.
This is the basic arithmetic: the remote model will always be staffed either with teachers pulled from their buildings who need to be replaced or new hires. Both solutions require an increase in funding or significant cuts to the school and/or city budget.
Lexington High School has 2300 students. It’s open for in Person learning. Wellesley High School has 1600 hundred students. It’s open for in person learning. Needham high school has 1700 students and it is open for in person learning. Newton needs to figure this out as our property values decline and students suffer.
on Jane’s comment about two separate and distinct models: why can’t we just live stream the in person class for those kids that are learning from home that day or for those that always choose to learn from home. Other towns are doing this. Might cost some technology dollars for cameras and a microphone in the rooms but the streaming technology is readily available.
@Amy – exactly. The NPS and NTA need to explain what is special about Newton high schools that is preventing them from re-opening when high schools of similar size all around us are in hybrid mode. NNHS in particular is far newer than many of these high schools. And @parent and @Patrick Foster – agreed – why is NTA driving the bus here and disregarding the advice of people actually educated in epidemiology?
The politicizing of this has really made this all so very much more difficult. Now the metric for some seems to be that there has to be zero infections in the entire community before anyone is allowed to do anything. Every. Single. Activity. Has risks associated with it. A car is dangerous. We do our best to mitigate these risks – safety belts, safety features. But the risk never goes to zero. Same thing applies here. Take sensible precautions to minimize risk to all but to say that every kid and teacher has to hunker down until not a single virus is to be found anywhere is just nuts.
I should also point out that for everyone (who is not at high risk due to age, comorbidities etc) who decides that it’s too risky to do anything outside, there has to be an army of people who must go to work every day to support them.
The reality is that 20% of the HS staff is medically unable to teach in person. The people in this category had to provide documentation from a doctor confirming a diagnosis that put them at high risk for a serious case of COVID-19. That was and is a game changer. There are solutions, but the question remains – is the city willing to pay to staff two distinct models – the hybrid and the remote model?
@Jonathan yes! My child just moved to a private school (because of the current chaos in the Newton high schools) and they have the in person classes streamed simultaneously to the kids learning remotely that week (the school is one week on/off). Then there is no need for 2 models.
Also, the school has a few teachers teaching remotely (for health reasons) but they are teaching to a class that is half in the school and half at home. As far as I can tell, this is all working just fine and my child is loving the opportunity to interact in person with other kids. But all of this required planning and implementation months ahead of time.
I’ve been thinking about this thread quite a bit today. I’m a parent of High Schooler that believes we’ve missed an opportunity to open the school’s while the metrics are favorable. I’m frustrated. I think it’s for 2 reasons.
First, I don’t feel that the players are listening and engaging in a productive discussion with the community. The interests of the Mayor, School Committee/Superintendent, and NTA don’t seem aligned with most parents/taxpayers/voters. This is a big problem. Our elected officials have decision making power now. The parents have the votes and the pocketbooks that pay our taxes. This will come into play next year.
Second, for whatever reason Newton seems to have chosen to weight the costs of COVID itself (people might die) higher than the sum of the damage to our kid’s education and development, the support families with working parents need due to distance learning, etc. than other neighboring communities. I don’t know why we’re different, more conservative, more cautious. This seems to carry over into other lesser (but important) issues…Newton apparently does less than neighboring towns (Needham) to support our restaurants/small businesses. This might point to our Mayor, and I suspect that it does.
It’s impossible to know who is more right, but I think we’re grossly understating the damage from the results of COVID vs. COVID itself. That we’ve not yet had a reasonable discussion on thresholds and metrics by which schools might reopen in person is really concerning to me. We need this discussion…we need to get agreement from all parties, and especially the teachers, under what circumstances they would teach. I fear that we’ll find that that answer is never (post vaccine), but we need to flush this out.
It’s especially frustrating to me that so much important information about what’s happened behind the scenes is hidden from the parents/public. Not having a newspaper, daily reporting, etc. hurts us badly. We need independent, critical eyes on everything. I think of the Washington Post….Democracy Dies in Darkness.
But in the darkness, I’m left with the impression that our Mayor and School Committee should do much more, that our Superintendent hasn’t exhibited a “growth mindset” and misled us by promising a hybrid option that he couldn’t deliver on, and a NTA with job security, benefits/retirement plans better than most of us have that’s just gone too far.
Not to sidetrack the primary discussion, but just a quick observation – I’m not sure if Needham is necessarily exemplary. We love that the town has put out picnic tables on the common and dropped in some Jersey barriers for dining parklets, and they’ve also shifted police patrols from cars to bicycles which makes for a more pleasant social environment…but I’ve never seen any road closures and Needham certainly hasn’t done anything nearly as great as what Waltham has achieved with Moody Street all summer.
And unfortunately there are going to be tumbleweeds rolling through Needham Center once this is all over. Literally every week I walk into a store and the owner tells me that they’re shutting down – a few weeks ago it was Hillside Gardens on Great Plain Ave., then the week after that it was Art Emporium on Chestnut St., and this week it was Pollywogs, the kids’ clothing shop on Great Plain Ave. A bunch of other places are going out of business too – a karate school, a women’s clothing shop, the optometrist, the tailor, etc. Heartbreaking. At the end of the day we’ll have regressed to the nondescript downtown of my childhood which was not much more than a Woolworth’s and Medi-Mart (now CVS and Walgreens). Not that it’s the town’s fault of course.
Michael,
You make very good points that I’ve wondered about myself. I think the situation boils down to a) Newton having a lot of older residents that don’t have kids in schools and don’t particularly care about the costs to them and b) the fact that Newton is significantly more liberal than Needham and Wellesley and think that keeping our kids out of school is somehow sticking it to Trump.
Even though the things that the teachers and the useful idiot parents who are playing along are demanding at NOT happening in other districts, at this point I don’t think they can be reasoned with. If we have to fire every single employee in Newton city government in order to pay for hospital level ventilation and “surveillance testing,” then that is what we should do.
It is also important to realize that the hybrid plan that may never happen for middle school isn’t actually in person schooling. Rather it is subs watching classes of masks kids who in turn are watching a frightened teacher at home on Zoom.
All the while Russian math and all of the supplemental education services are fully up and running.
@Craig “a frightened teacher at home on zoom” is a really negative way to talk about people who are at high risk of a serious case of Covid if 5hey contract the virus…those are the only teachers permitted to teach from home.
First of all, NTA = your child’s teacher. The only people who belong to NTA are Newton teachers.
NTA (that is to say the teachers) had no say in the development of the reopening models. The NTA proposal for a hybrid model was rejected outright.
NTA tried to negotiate for a surveillance testing plan. It was rejected outright and is now off the table. A surveillance testing program, as used by a number of K-12 districts and all colleges in the area, would ensure that an isolated positive case does not turn into an outbreak that would close down part, or a whole school, or the whole system.
NTA tried to negotiate for an outside assessment of the ventilation system, and that too was rejected. The school committee finally agreed to have 12 classrooms assessed and a number of them did not pass the inspection. Now the ventilation systems in all classrooms will be assessed and remediated where necessary. The ventilation in the Newton schools has been notoriously bad for years. Windows don’t open, heating systems don’t work properly, etc – hardly “hospital level ventilation”. Students benefit from being in a healthy classroom environment.
Let me be clear: Newton, like every other school system, needs more teachers in order to staff two models during the pandemic. It also needs to fill the positions left empty by teachers with medical issues who are unable to teach in enclosed spaces for sustained periods of time. The truly frightening reality is that there aren’t any teachers out there to hire. Just as importantly, there aren’t people willing to take aides positions when they can be a nanny for the year and make as much money in a safer environment. These people are essential to the smooth running of a school system.
Let me be clear about something else: teachers aren’t “frightened”. What on earth is there to be frightened of? However, teachers are powerless. No one cares what they think. No one believes they have expertise in their own field. No one bothers to ask them about the needs of the space in which they spend many hours five days a week. This is nothing new – it’s been this way forever.
I sign my name to my entries. I believe people who criticize others should be willing to do the same. The moderators should revisit this issue now that there are so many sites where people must use their real names and
@Jane you’re correct about NYC teachers, and my daughter is one of them. Fortunately (?) she already had Covid-19, weeks before giving birth to her daughter, our grandchild, who tests negative. My daughter applied for medical exemption ( for her daughter being negative ) and was refused.
Newton parents have been unfortunately brainwashed into think that unions are the problem. As you point out, they’re your children’s teachers and frankly most of those parents are too stupid to appreciate how hard they work and how good a job they do. ( my kids went through NPS) These parents are self entitled children, in my not so humble opinion.
They’d rather risk my granddaughter ( or other People’s lives) because, we’ll they think they can open the schools “safely”. Except no one bothers to define that term with numbers. Numbers of new cases acceptable- number of deaths acceptable. Those are the number# you have to come up with, and m still waiting to hear how many deaths would be acceptable in return for opening up the schools.
Signed,
Not an anonymous coward
Rich “the sky is falling” Frank. Let me bother to define a number for you. ZERO. Zero is the number of documented world-wide Covid-19 transmissions from a pupil to a teacher. Instead of worrying that working may cause your granddaughter to die, you should worry that she may die from slipping on a banana peel.
“It’s OK”
by Jeffrey “3-foot” Pontiff on August 24, 2020 at 6:17 pm
“Boston College COVID-19 outbreak worries epidemiologists, students, community”
By Laura Krantz, Bob Hohler and Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff,Updated September 11, 2020, 8:35 p.m.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/09/11/metro/bc-outbreak-worries-epidemiologists-students-community/
“We Were Lied To’: Students Criticize Boston College Over Lack Of Transparency Around COVID-19”
By Tori Bedford
September 14, 2020
https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2020/09/14/we-were-lied-to-students-criticize-boston-college-over-lack-of-transparency-around-covid-19
“Over 100 BC Students Have Tested Positive for COVID-19. Now the Baker Administration Is Stepping in”
By Staff and wire reports
Published September 16, 2020
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/coronavirus/over-100-bc-students-have-tested-positive-for-covid-19-now-the-baker-administration-is-stepping-in/2195642/
Thank Michael for re-posting so I don’t have to. I stand by everything I said. Let me add that I have not heard of anyone at BC getting COVID by going to class.
I’m not sure why people keep obsessing about BC. They are testing at a high volume, and for the past few weeks, the positivity rate is well below the surrounding communities in Newton and Boston. Last week alone, BC tested over 6500 people, including 4991 undergrads. There were only 9 positive results. That is great news.
@Jeffrey Pontiff
I’m not sure what that means. There have been lots of Covid outbreaks in schools. There have been lots of teacher who have contracted Covid.
In a widespread pandemic nobody ever knows definitively where they contracted the disease, at best they have a good guess. (See all the conjecture about the path to President Trumps’ infection, for an example of this). So almost by definition there are no “documented” cases.
People would be willing to put up with a lot, if they knew there was a defined end date or at least a metric of success. It’s the opposite of what we have now…constantly moving targets, no defined time frame and no objective, broadly accepted metrics to measure progress. What if we don’t have an fully effective, available vaccine for two or three years? What if we never have a vaccine that eradicates this virus? We know who is vulnerable to serious illness or death from covid-19. It’s not children and its not otherwise healthy people under 60. Of 9000+ covid deaths in Massachusetts, not 1 was under 20 years old. For those under 50, the death rate from covid infection was 0.01. Close to 2/3 of the covid fatalities were nursing home residents in their 80s and 90s. In Newton, the median age for covid fatalities is 85. The frail elderly and other vulnerable people should be isolated to limit their exposure. This is a risk benefit analysis that is a feature of policy making. A quality education is the most important social determinant of health. In areas like Newton where the prevalence of the virus is low, the societal cost of keeping schools closed outweighs the benefit.
@NNHS Parent
Totally agree
Steve Miller, the reason people are obsessing over BC is that their recklessness put the lives of an awful lot of people in the community at risk. Kudos to them for having supposedly gotten it under control with outside assistance, but in the meantime who knows how many community infections they caused in Cleveland Circle, Newton Centre, Star Market, or Wegman’s.
Jeffrey, you say that there are zero documented cases of pupil-teacher transmission worldwide, and that you’re not aware of any intramural classroom infections at BC. For those observations to be relevant, there would need to be successful case investigation and tracing of every symptomatic and symptomatic COVID-19 infection, with a determination of the precise time and location of each infection. Obviously that’s impossible.
On Friday a girl coughed in my direction when I passed her on the bridge over the Public Garden lagoon, and – I kid you not – an idiot cyclist on Beacon Street actually spit while I was riding behind him. I may start coughing myself in a few days, and may even kick the bucket from COVID in a couple of weeks, but people will still say “there are no known stranger-to-stranger infections that have occurred in the Public Garden, so it’s okay to go maskless there,” and “there are no known infections that have resulted from public expectoration, so it’s AOK to hock a loogie in the bike lane.”
Although I stand by the facts in my response to Rich Frank, I regret my tone and not showing as much personal respect a I should have. I apologize to Mr. Frank. I also regret not being to edit my posts!
Jerry, the zero number comes from Mark Woolhouse, a well-respected British epidemiologist who, based on science, thinks that the UK should have been more aggressive opening schools. Yes, there have been outbreaks among students at schools (for example, a Georgia schools with no masks). Yes, teachers have been infected from spouses. Yes, teachers have been infected at school from other teachers. There is evidence of all of these things, yet there is no evidence of pupil to teacher transmission. Yes, we can’t always figure out how someone got infected. Does the zero statistic imply that pupil-to-teacher transmission has never happened. No. That being said, if it was a serious issue you would expect see more cases than zero.
BC is a distraction from the NPS issue, but I’ll bring up one more statistic. Since 8/24, BC has given 6,660 COVID tests to staff. Only one test was positive. This is likely a result from someone being infected from a close family member. If COVID transmissions are rampant when students sit 3 feet apart, one would expect a much higher infection rate among staff.
Michael gets my personal vivid-disgusting-flashback-phrase award for “hock a loogie”. I haven’t heard that one in about 40 years 😉
Whatever your position on school opening is, I think we should keep the focus on DF and the SC – the disagreements and fighting is taking the attention away from holding DF accountable for a plan that was not pressure tested by any stakeholder. I understand there are a lot of unknowns with the current situation and that every district is going through issues, but I would argue that’s why he should have been communicating with us proactively at the very least so that we can understand what the underlying thinking is. If we don’t hold him accountable, it only prolongs and exacerbates the current situation.
Jeffrey – You say the only in-school transmission is teacher to teacher. Guess who works in schools? Teachers! Teachers who are supposed to collaborate with one another as an essential part of their jobs. Teachers who work in classrooms with other teachers supporting high needs students. All this happens in enclosed spaces for sustained periods of time.
This is very different from what happens at the college level. You’re able to stand in front of a class and lecture. Maybe not the best model, but it’s still acceptable. You don’t have other adults in your classroom and you can walk out of the building at the end of your class. So you, as a college professor, are safe.
Thank you, Lainy. At this point in my life, I teach just one class and I do it remotely. It takes me four times as long to plan a lesson as it would for an in-person lesson, yet I have to read a constant barrage of comments from parents saying that I’m sitting home “on vacation” and collecting a paycheck.
Typically, I drop off materials for my students after they leave the building. On Friday, I arrived at the very end of schoolday to see two of my students run out of building. It was the first time I’d seen them in person and my heart broke. This is not easy on anyone and no one wants it to be this way. If people would ease up on one another, it would help tremendously.
I think that if Ruthanne Fuller were to unequivocally state that it was time to open the schools it would somehow happen. Most everyone likes and respects her and the parties would listen.
That she hasn’t done this leads me to believe that while she may wish the schools could open, that she doesn’t support this. It could be because of all the “logistics” and other issues that have been discussed, her putting a higher weight on very real health concerns vs. all the ancillary costs, or a bit of both.
I still believe that we’re significantly underestimating the damage being done to our kids…both their education and overall growth, along with the costs to each and every parent that oversees the at home learning. Covid is really dangerous, but we know more about it now, We need to listen to our medical experts, and look at the experiences of our neighboring communities. It can be done. It just takes the will and political courage to make it happen.
This thread is getting old and few people will read this. But I’d love to see a new thread that more directly addresses what the Mayor’s role has been, but also should be? It’s easy to say that it’s not really her call, that it rests with the Superintendent and School Committee, but I don’t entirely believe that. If Ruthanne Fuller or any recent Mayor we can think of clearly stated that it was time for the schools to re-open in person….each and every party would be forced to listen and somehow get it done…or at least try harder.
Does most everyone like Mayor Fuller? She doesn’t seem very popular among the folks I know.
It’s simple. They want more and more families to send their kids to private schools to make their jobs easier and the fiscal situation more stable.
I started asking them about their scenario planning in the spring bc i was so irritated that the spring had been such a waste of time. They knew back in May/June that September would be problematic and it’s unclear why we didn’t use the spring to at the very least try to optimize things like remote learning or try to collect feedback from parents, teachers, healthcare professionals etc. As far as I can tell, Ruthanne has said little during the SC meetings and was falling asleep on one. The fact that they handled the 3ft vs 6 ft issue the way described here is concerning and at this point, I am not holding my breath for her or DF to step up to the plate. At the very least, we should be told what the plan is to get back to school, what issues they are working on, designate proper channels for parents to provide feedback, and what needs to happen to get back to school.
Personally, I think parents and teachers need to band together to get answers. They aren’t listening to the one off complaints and protests/petitions are being ignored. Ruth Goldman dismisses every issue by claiming that she hears the opposite. They are shutting us all out of the discussions and regardless of your position, I think we just want to have answers. It’s a bit ridiculous that we have barely heard anything in September? No course correction, no best practices, no solicitation of parent feedback, or info about what happens when it gets really cold?
I think the elementary and middle schools will all go all virtual after Thanksgiving. With rising numbers, insufficient air filtration in many of the buildings, and weather cooling off, I’m not sure what they’re doing is sustainable.
@mary – agree and going on a limb here, but doubt transition plan is rigorous and we will end up wasting more school time esp with holidays etc. Plans are never perfect but it’s especially hard when we don’t have visibility into process.
The school committee met last night and the mayor was shocked that SHOULD there be a plan to RETURN to high school, it won’t start until Q2 ends in January! She was shocked it would be that long.
Obviously it is shocking that NPS has so completely and utterly failed the most important job in Newton, but if the mayor is shocked at this point then she is even more unfit for the job than we thought.
It would be useful for the Globe to create a map and database of every public and private school, cross referenced with their open status. I suppose this would require a break from speculating over the moron in chief’s health status.
Anecdotally, Newton North has to be the most modern high school in the US that is not currently open, yes?
I am a parent of a HS student she needs to be in school. She needs the social interactions, and the personal relations with teachers and fellow students. She is stressed and depressed without this normalcy.
Let’s stop the blame game and focus our energy on putting the kids in school !!!
What are we waiting for to put kids in school? What is the actual criteria to bring kids into the schools? We have sports going on at the schools? How is this possible and learning is not?
a) Full in person learning
b) Hybrid Model
A vaccine will not change anything drastically (it is marginally over 50% effective), and not everyone will take it, so even after a vaccine we still need to have the same protective masks and maturity. What if there is no vaccine? Will there be no school?
Our kids will lose another year of school if we do not get them in classes by 1st of the year. There will be excuses about it being too close to winter break, then spring break, then the end of the year, the gaps will be “too short” to implement changes.
Let’s reserve the blame game for the election cycles, and hopefully we will get some parents that are interested in running for school committee and city council to change the types of decisions that will be made. USE THIS AND OTHER FORUMS TO GET YOUR GRASS ROOT SUPPORT!!!
Now Fleishman seems to be back pedaling on the elementary schoolers starting full days next month. I doubt it will happen. I think all schools will be all virtual sometime between Thanksgiving and the New Year.
MMQC. Are you inferring this from an email?