Last Updated: 14 November 2020
Written by Judith Pfeffer
With regard to having students more present on campus, Arlington continues to weigh physical safety versus emotional health at a time when Covid-19 infection is on the rise everywhere.
For now, Arlington Public Schools will stay the course despite blowback from some parents of students at Arlington High School, still under all-remote instruction because of health-related facilities issues.
"There is zero transmission within our schools," a testament to how well safety measures are working in the hybrid [part-time, on-campus] model including keeping six feet between desks, said Superintendent Kathleen Bodie midway through the Thursday, Nov. 12, School Committee meeting.
She said the Centers for Disease Control strongly recommends six feet; however, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education is less strict, and Gov. Charlie Baker generally has been pushing for more on-campus instruction in recent days.
Committee member Bill Hayner commended APS employees "for keeping us safe" and said the right approach was to continue "to err on the side of caution." He added: "We're not just making arbitrary decisions."
Latest testing termed 'perfect'
Bodie said that the ongoing weekly schedule of free voluntary virus testing for on-site APS employees continues, with the latest session "perfect" with "no positives, all negatives" in the 255 staffers tested. She did not provide a date and has not responded to YourArlington requests in the last week about testing results.
The next test is set for Friday, Nov. 20, she told the committee.
The meeting began with public comment from four parents of AHS students, all asking for a way to bring older teens back to campus for some in-person activities, classes or both.
"The mental health of our students is suffering, and an option for in-person learning would help," said Diane Gardner, who said 244 signatures on a petition devised by eight residents asking officials to consider hybrid and remote options in the new year. She said the current situation "disregards the clear priority that the community placed on in-person learning" in surveys earlier this year and is "grossly unfair."
Committee Chair Jane Morgan asked that a copy of the petition be forwarded to her. Read the petition here >>
Another parent, Thomas Davison, asked to "bring back at least the senior class" early next year to use the 30 AHS classrooms that have good ventilation. "Emotionally and socially, it matters."
Andrea Canty, mother of two AHS seniors, said she had recently met with AHS Principal Matthew Janger about possible creative alternatives to dances and football games. She said that the 12th-graders "feel forgotten, with little or no acknowledgment of their losses" and said a parent-administration group should be immediately formed to plan activities.
"We ask that the School Committee prioritize giving seniors tangible in-person experiences," if not actual on-campus classes, said another local mom, Ann Skoczenski. "Many parents are willing to work collaboratively."
Superintendent finalists' meetings
In other business, the committee affirmed that it would meet the evenings of Nov. 19 and Nov. 20 to interview the two candidates – Victoria Greer and Elizabeth Homan -- under consideration to succeed Bodie, who will retire in June.
The committee will next meet Nov. 24 to discuss progress on the facilities situation at AHS; Janger was to submit a report Nov. 13 to the school administration on the progress of upgrading AHS' physical plant.
On Nov. 24, School Committee members will also discuss, but not necessarily vote on, choosing the new superintendent.
New hires
Human Resources Director Robert Spiegel said that the schools had recently "on-boarded" 10 new employees: a counselor, a special-education reading teacher and eight paraprofessionals. He and Bodie said that the district was recruiting more paraprofessionals, especially those qualified to supervise students when teachers engage in daily preparation.
Until such hires are made, the school day will continue to end at 1:45 p.m. rather than the 2:30 p.m. conclusion, which occurred prepandemic. In those fully on-campus days, teachers did their prep while students were with librarians or other certificated personnel.
Enrollment update
Total enrollment is down this year compared to a year ago, Chief Financial Officer Michael Mason reported, adding that though the new figures are not yet certified, they are unlikely to change. Oct. 1, 2019, saw 6,128 students, as compared to 5,849 on Oct. 1, 2020.
Mason attributed this decline to family relocation out of APS boundaries and to other parents sending their children to private schools, undertaking home-schooling, or, in the case of some 5-year-olds, holding them back a year in hopes of full-time on-campus classes next school year.
Curriculum
Reports about curriculum were made by directors of major learning areas, including digital citizenship, health-and-wellness, history/social studies, performing arts, science, social-and-emotional learning, visual arts, and world language. Similar reports had been given at a previous School Committee meeting on computer science, English language learning and mathematics.
2 contracts
The committee passed unanimously as part of the consent agenda two memos of agreement -- for the traffic supervisors and for cafeteria food service. Read the documents here >>
YourArlington.com has provided news and opinion about Arlington, Mass., since 2006. Publisher Bob Sprague is a former editor at The Boston Globe, Boston Herald and Arlington Advocate. Read more at https://www.yourarlington.com/about.
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