By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Sitka students of all ages will return to class in person this fall, though schools will look and function differently in order to maximize safety, members of the school district’s Start Smart Task Force said Thursday night.
Their meeting was held in Harrigan Centennial Hall and also streamed on Zoom.
Teachers, parents, and administrators from each of the five school districts are on the reopening task force, which presented individual plans for the reopening.
Interim District Superintendent John Holst stressed the importance of a multi-layer safety system to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“You’re constantly trying to layer these things. We’re shortening the day, the kids aren’t moving around the building as much... eating in the classrooms, that’s three, wearing a mask, there’s four. And we keep layering these things on… You have to do enough of them for the students and the staff to be safe. Period. We want the students and the staff to be safe,” Holst said.
While the details of the reopening plans vary among schools, they all have elements in common:
“The length of the school day in all five of the plans is a shortened day. The reason for that is to eliminate a lot of the contact,” he said.
Holst and a number of school representatives highlighted the importance of having students learning in person this fall, even if not full-time.
“The ideal learning environment for the kids at Baranof (Elementary School) would be in-school learning. Kindergartners and first graders benefit most when they have hands-on experiences,” Baranof parent representative Kristin Hames said.
Hames added that Baranof Elementary plans for in-person learning five days a week. She said that the low student population, combined with the large building, will aid in promoting physical distancing.
Sitka High parent representative Kealoha Harmon said high schoolers will receive education five days a week, but that students will rotate for in-person learning in cohorts.
“In all cases the students will be learning five days a week – that was critical to us,” Harmon said. “Only half of the students would be in the building in either green (low risk) or medium (risk).”
Harmon added that Sitka High will replace the two-semester school year with a quarter system.
“This was the biggest mind-set shift that had to happen ... a normal semester class will now be done in nine weeks and a normal yearlong class will now be done in a semester. So it is going to be a lot more intensive,” Harmon said.
Sitka High teacher Tim Pike acknowledged that this may introduce some academic gaps, but said the quarter system is best for student and staff safety.
“This isn’t a decision that we took for academic reasons... This is what we’re doing to mitigate the impacts of what’s going on right now,” Pike said.
Blatchley Middle School parent Kate Johnson said at her school, teachers, not students, will rotate between classes to reduce infection risks.
“If somebody in the cohort got the virus, then the whole school doesn’t necessarily have to shut down, or that could provide a buffer,” she said.
Pacific High School parent Rachel Roy stressed the need for scheduling consistency in schools so that employers could schedule their employees who have children in school
“It will be really important that we know from August to December this is what my employee’s availability is going to be,” Roy said.
Each school plan is broken down into color-coded risk from green at the low end to red at the high end. Red risk entails widespread community transmission of COVID-19. Officials said that schools seem likely to enter the fall semester in yellow, or medium risk. School plans indicate that in red risk schools will shift to all-online learning, as they did in March as the virus became a global pandemic.
Holst emphasized the importance of risk mitigation, adding that school plans cannot prevent all risk.
“No plan can eliminate all risks,” he said.
The plans for all buildings call for safety measures that include physical distancing and reducing the overall number of people in the building. Holst supported masks, but said a decision on that will be up to the School Board.
“I suspect we’re going to be talking about everyone wearing a mask, I don’t see how we’re going to do it any other way,” Holst said.
“Both Anchorage and Juneau are requiring masks be worn by students and staff. That may be a decision that ends up on the agenda for the School Board to decide,” he said.
He stressed that masks are needed to protect others.
“I am wearing a mask to protect you. If you are not wearing a mask to protect me, that’s on you. That’s not right,” Holst said.
He went on to say that some staff members and students with medical issues may require additional accommodations.
“The difficulty for us will be separating that group of people who have very good reasons (to be absent from in-person activities) from the people who have high anxiety,” he said.
However, Holst acknowledged that anxiety itself can be debilitating, asking rhetorically: “When does high anxiety become so bad that you are dysfunctional?”
A recording of the task force meeting is available at sitkaschools.org for those who were unable to view the presentation live. Comments left in the chat section of the Zoom meeting indicated that only 100 people were able to sign in before the remote access capacity of the meeting was reached, meaning there were some people who could not watch.
The school reopening plans are not yet final.
The finished version of the reopening plans will be posted as a School Board packet on July 24. The board will review the plans on July 27, with schools set to open August 27.
