Working to Overcome Challenges, Schools Stay Open (for Now)
Strath Haven Middle School 6th Grade Orchestra - Cohort B on November 12, 2020. Photo: Henry Pearlberg
Schools in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District will stay open for in-person instruction — at least for now — and district teachers are working extremely hard.
These were the two main take-aways from Monday’s school board meeting.
Superintendent Lisa Palmer countered rumors that, as local COVID-19 rates rise, health authorities are requiring Delaware County schools to switch from hybrid instruction to all-virtual learning. “As of today, no mandates have been issued,” she said. “We plan to maintain our current hybrid delivery model,” she said.
Palmer also reported that the Chester County Health Department has modified its recommendations about when schools should switch to all-virtual learning. Earlier, the health department had suggested school closures when case numbers and positivity rates reached stipulated thresholds two weeks in a row; the new policy extends that time frame to three weeks.
Furthermore, the health department now encourages school districts to consider these metrics within the contexts of the number of COVID-19 cases in the schools, evidence of transmission within schools, staffing levels, and compliance with recommended preventive measures. The health department also now suggests that any transitions to all-virtual learning proceed incrementally, with older grades moving fully online first.
Palmer listed four factors that could force the district to return to virtual instruction in any or all of its schools: COVID transmission within schools; an inability of the Chester County Health Department to contact-trace; insufficient staff to open buildings; and a mandate from the commonwealth or the Chester County Health Department to close schools.
“The COVID situation remains dynamic,” Palmer said. She noted that cases within the county, the district, and the schools have all increased over the past week.
“We, as a community, need to be more diligent than ever in our safety measures if we want to keep our schools open,” she said, pleading with students, staff, and families to observe social distance and to wear masks. “You can probably say this with me by now,” she noted as she recited these safety measures.
Defending Asynchronous Wednesdays
At the last board meeting, on October 27, some parents, and board member Jennifer Lentz, questioned whether Wednesdays — when students have no synchronous learning — were being used well. Many parents expressed frustration that their children are struggling academically, and one accused teachers of not working on Wednesdays. In response, Director of Education Denise Citarelli Jones explained how much work teachers undertake every day and described in detail how they use Wednesdays.
Citarelli Jones explained how much time it takes for teachers to adjust their lessons to work online — or, in many cases, online and in person simultaneously.
A former English teacher, Citarelli Jones used a lesson on persuaive writing as an example. Before COVID, she said, she might ask students to write persuasive slogans on the white board, then have them swap papers to read and edit, while she herself circled the room offering help.
“In pandemic learning, I would have to rethink all of that,” she said. Students can’t get up from their desks to move around the room. They can’t share markers. They can’t exchange papers. “Anything that was a hard copy before, I have to make that digital.” And of course, teachers can no longer move from desk to desk around the room. “I need to figure out new ways to peer over students’ shoulders,” she said.
“Our teachers are reinventing every single thing they do in a lesson, for every single lesson,” Citarelli Jones said, estimating that the time needed to prepare each lesson has tripled.
That preparation is an important part of what happens on Wednesdays, Citarelli Jones said. Teachers also use Wednesdays for a multitude of other tasks, including attending grade-level and department meetings, holding office hours for students, making instructional videos, leading clubs, emailing students and families, developing new assessment strategies, and keeping up with ever-changing technologies.
Citarelli Jones also argued that students need asynchronous Wednesdays, calling the processing and practicing that happens on that day “a critical step in the learning process.”
Obstacles to Full Days at High School
Strath Haven High School Principal Greg Hilden addressed another concern raised at the October 27 board meeting: full days for high school students. Middle school and elementary school students who opted for the hybrid instructional model are attending school in person two full days each week. Hybrid high school students, by contrast, only attend in person for half a day twice a week.
The main obstacle to full days at the high school, Hilden explained, is block scheduling. Under normal circumstances, students typically have four long classes each day. The third block each day is longer than the others, accommodating staggered lunch periods. But the pandemic makes lunch — and therefore third block — much more complicated. Social distancing dictates fewer students in the cafeteria at once. This would require additional lunch shifts (as well as enhanced COVID-appropriate cleaning), which would make third-block classes disproportionately long.
Hilden reported additional difficulties with the high school status quo. The current absentee rate for in-person learning is high, at 13%. Students are opting out of fifth block, which is usually used for extra academic help, clubs, and other activities. More students are turning off cameras while on Zoom, and student engagement seems to be decreasing.
An upcoming survey of family attitudes will help shape potential solutions to current problems. Hilden reported that his staff is also looking to other districts for ideas (although few local districts use block scheduling).
Hilden noted that parent requests are often contradictory. “We have been asked for less homework, more homework, less asynchronous and more asynchronous work,” he reported. Some families have told him that they are not comfortable with their students being in school a full day and will switch from hybrid to the Online Academy if in-person instruction is extended to the whole day.
“That presents us with a very interesting philosophical situation,” he said. “Is there more value in a full day for X number of students? Or having a larger number of students in our building for a half day?”
Defending Teachers
At October’s board meeting, parents spent close to an hour expressing frustration with the district and, in some cases, with teachers. In response, many teachers, parents, and one child of a teacher spent the same amount of time at this meeting defending teachers.
”I’m here to make you aware of just how hard our teachers are working,” said veteran high school social studies teacher Amanda Lawson, who also has a daughter in the district. “The hours spent are impossible to count.” People who say teachers are not working five days a week are correct, she said: “We’re working seven days a week.” She implored the board to keep Wednesdays asynchronous to offer teachers preparation time.
Kate Jones, a long-time fifth grade teacher at Nether Providence Elementary School and a graduate of Strath Haven High School, called some of the criticisms voiced at the October board meeting hurtful and unfair. “It is almost impossible to explain the sheer exhaustion teachers have experienced over the last 11 weeks,” she said, noting that she had seen emails teachers had sent to her own children at 6:30 in the morning and 10:45 at night.
Meghan Coyne, a teacher in a neighboring district whose children attend Wallingford-Swarthmore schools, wanted the community to understand that the frequent 10- to 12-hour days teachers are working comes at the expense of time with their families. “To take frustrations about this school year out on our teachers is not right,” she said.
Board President David Grande expressed sympathy with both teachers and frustrated parents. “We are living through some extremely difficult times,” he said. “And I think those difficult times have created some deep feelings.” He urged the community to find a way to work together to seek solutions. Of district teachers, he said, “We need to support and celebrate people who are working so hard.”
The next board meeting will be Monday, November 23, at 7 p.m. To watch it live or afterwards, go to WSSD’s YouTube Channel.
