At a July 2nd Snoqualmie Valley School Board work session, preliminary information on the district’s fall reopening plan was presented. An announcement to families is expected on July 8th.
The district has said its goal is to reopen schools entirely, but state mandates for 6 feet of social distance may not allow for that so administrators have been examining hybrid options over the past month.
See State OSPI’s Reopening Washington Schools Q&A for School Districts regarding rules for reopening
[See our earlier story on SVSD Reopening Plan]
The preliminary plan represents where the district is currently at, also taking into consideration current state safety protocol mandates, like social distance, face coverings and health screenings.
The district has previously stated it will be ‘nimble’ in its planning so as to respond quickly to changing conditions – meaning preparing a more robust remote learning model if schools close completely again and being prepared for conditions to improve and school returns to normal.
SVSD utilized surveys and committee work to gather input from parents and staff to create its reopening plan.
This is an overview of the preliminary plan discussed by the school board and Superintendent Manahan at the July 2nd work session, but as coronavirus conditions change, the plan could also change quickly.
Note: The plan could be slightly different on July 8th when the public announcement is made and change again before the board adopts a final reopening plan resolution in August.
The district stated earlier it wanted a preliminary plan announced in early July so parents could begin planning.
Overview of SVSD Preliminary 2020-21 Reopening Plan Discussed at 7/2 Work Session
- K-2nd grade students attend full-time, in-person school (if class sizes are small enough, could accommodate 6-foot distance rules).
- 3rd-12th grade students attend hybrid school model. Students will be split into two groups determined alphabetically. One group attends in-person school Monday, Thursday and every other Wednesday. The other group is Tuesday, Friday and every other Wednesday. Social distance can be maintained for in-person learning with these smaller groups of students.
- School start times will be pushed back slightly to allow for teacher planning time.
- Early release day will change to Wednesday.
- During remote learning days students will have access to teacher office hours to ask questions. Remote learning will be “blended or flipped,” where lessons are learned at home and then students attend in-person school for labs and applications, working with teachers to understand the lessons.
- During in-person learning days, middle and high school students will attend all classes. There will be no block schedules.
- All students and staff will wear face coverings, unless qualify for exemptions.
- Families can opt for full-time remote learning
The district still has many issues to work out. It hopes to encourage families to walk or drive kids to school to reduce bus ridership and increase social distance. It is still working out a lunch delivery system and how to do daily, required health screenings for in-person learning.
All of those details will be worked out by by August 13th when the school board is anticipated to pass a state mandated resolution containing its 2020-21 reopening plan.
Comments
I had the impression from the meeting that K-2 full time was still very tentative?
This is hilarious. How are people supposed to maintain full time employment while homeschooling their children three days a week!? More parents need to be speaking up with they want to maintain their current cost of living. The district will listen if people speak loud enough. Since when do you need to choose your child’s education or putting food on the table.
I think we all need to remember that our district isn’t just making these decisions on their own, they have to comply with the state guidelines. State guidelines are set because people are dying. So we buck up and do what we need to do for now, and know that we are all going to have hardships with kids not in school full time. Let’s work together not against each other. We are all “dying” to have things go back to normal and therefore we ARE DYING trying to be normal again. We’re inconvenienced, it could be worse. Thank you SVSD for trying!
It would be easier and less expensive for parents, and produce better student outcomes, if parents home schooled their children, rather than adopt this “hybrid” approach.
Some don’t have a luxury of a parent that stays home and not everyone works for a tech company that is allowing their employees to work from home the rest of the year.
Schools and teachers aren’t your baby sitters.
This is ridiculous! I am a teacher in the district and have 3 kids in 3 different schools. One thing that makes me extremely angry is the fact that this is being told to the public before staff in the district have been told ANYTHING. One of my children needs a full time interpreter. How in the world am I going to be at work all week, have my children in school only 2.5 days a week, come home to them and help with their school work? Not to mention the normal household stuff that needs to be done. I know for a fact that my children will fight if I am not home monitoring them. My husband is a first responder and can’t work from home. I am at a loss for words right now…. children deserve a quality education and this isn’t equitable in any fashion.
Having worked in the district’s preschool system for many years (I’m now retired), I’m saddened to see that once again the plans announce for K-12, ignoring our important early childhood program. I’m curious about plans for these children. Also, I wonder if there are additional accommodations being made for Special Education students.
I saw no mention of special needs classrooms.
You call the instructions “mandates” but OSPI has called them “suggestions” and “guidance”.
The recommendations will be so absolutely inconvenient to anything that remotely meets our needs as a family that these choices will force us to choose remote learning, which WE DO NOT WANT.
MY question is, if I end up having to “coach”, “teach”, “observe”, “guide” my children through a remote curriculum, why on Earth would I use the school districts model when I could choose a proven online homeschool curriculum, or just use Khan Academy?
Do I receive a refund in my taxes or get 3x partial pay from the teachers salary?
What value will my children receive from a “teacher” that they never actual meet?
What social interaction will my kids get that they don’t already through phones and other screen devices?
The models you have suggested are embarrassing and blaming OSPI or the State is a cop-out. You should be defending our children’s rights for a quality education, not just accepting the terrible options you’ve been given.
Both the superintendent and school board president have called them mandates. The superintendent asked if we did partitions, could distance requirements been lessened. He was told no.
OSPI, Chris Reykdals office, called them suggestions and guidance in two separate emails I have for them.
Either way, any professional with knowledge of children knows what has been recommended is not in the best interest of children.
The American Pediatric Association has definitely said that it is imperative that child(K-12) attend in person school this fall.
The positives of in person instruction far outweigh the known risk to children.
Chris Reykdal stated in April that there was no intention to return children to in person instruction until well into fall and until a vaccine was available. He said this in a radio interview.
My point is these decisions were made a long time ago without knowing the risk data.
SO the plan that OSPI is sticking to is the original one they had and have made no changes whatsoever.
It’s a disgrace.
This is without even getting into the stress this will put on working parents.
What will soon be apparent is we will not be received value from our teachers or schools.
You have misquoted the recommendation of the American Pediatric Association. Nowhere has the organization said that it is imperative that every child K-12 attend school in person this fall. The AAP has issued detailed guidance for school re-entry that “strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school.” We all want the same thing: for students and staff to be safe and healthy, together at school as much as is possible. The upcoming year is not going to be easy for anyone who has a stake in public schools: students, parents, teachers, administrators, childcare providers, special services staff, bus drivers, psychologists, librarians, food services workers, custodial and facilities staff. Unfortunately, this time around, it is about more than just the kids. We’re dealing with a potentially deadly disease with no vaccine and many who are at risk for severe illness. Let’s assume best intentions and get through this together.
What a bunch of whiners. So part of your ridiculously self entitled and over coordinated life has been disrupted.I imagine it’s more about keeping up the payments on the two $70,000 dollar vehicles and putting enough aside for the tropical vacation than ‘putting food on the table’. That,and having enough ‘me time’. Don’t you like your kids? Work from home. Drive a school bus. Adapt. You might surprise yourself.
What on Earth are you talking about? Maybe you’ve described your own situation, but that is far from where my family and I are at.
Feel free to keep your children at home “learning” from a screen, not socializing, and no structure.
If that’s the case you must be loving life. Let me know how it works out for you.
The adaptation that probably should occur, if we are going down this road is firing every admin and teacher and simply switch the school district over to an completely online, video based learning environment. The state will save billions.
All we have to do is have parents learn how to teach their children, no matter their needs, from home while also working from home. If it isn’t just quit their job or career.
Adapt right? What a troll.
My answer to you Cathy is nobody is in this together. We all have different needs, concerns, and understandings of the current situation.
My concern is of course about the health and well being of my children and other students. The scientific evidence and statistics show that children are least at risk. Adults under 45 have virtually 0.00% chance of major issues at beyond a few symptoms. These are facts according to JAMA and the epidemiologist from Stanford.
At this point, I cannot concern myself with the needs of someone who can afford to keep their children home, or that has a job that allows them to work from home. I am glad you have the ability to make different decisions, but it has nothing to do with want, as much as a need.
I will not concern myself with someone else’s willingness to accept a subpar education, or allow my kids to be an experiment in remote education.
A lot has become known since March, and the stakeholders in WA have no changed with those recommendations or observations. They have simply listened to the pressure from OSPI to go towards a remote learning model. You do realize the goal originally was to not have anyone return to an actually classroom until January 2021 right?
What I do know is I will not subject my children to this experiment in learning that many educational experts agree will not benefit our children. You are within your rights to send your and pretend that everyone is in this together. I did that exact thing and kept my mouth shut since they canceled school.
Hopefully more parents have the courage to let school districts know they are not happy with the plan and will not accept it.
Lastly, many other countries and other states in our very own country are making different, logical, and practical choices for reopening school. Our State is not.
Stay scared. Stay Home. Mask up.
You get what you vote for. Maybe if y’all hadn’t spent the last 20 years voting for leftist tyrants who want to control every aspect of our lives, we wouldn’t be suffering the wrath of leftist tyrants pushing this hoax narrative as an excuse to exert more control over our lives.
Look no further than the latest “order” from Inslee as proof of the control oriented pettiness of the situation. When the few sane people left in WA thumb their noses at his ego-maniacal, unconstitutional order to wear muzzles, he proceeds to try to bully every business in the state with the threat of fines if they don’t refuse all service to customers who aren’t wearing muzzles.
The antibody tests from LA County and NY State as far back as April exposed COVID’s real death rate of around 0.2%, and even that is mostly elderly and immunocompromised. So if that’s you or your child, you go worry about yours. What’s come out since then? Approximately 33% of all cases are fully asymptomatic. Approximately 85% of all cases are either asymptomatic or similar to a mild cold. WHO admitting asymptomatics rarely transmit it, which is common sense as they aren’t coughing it up everywhere. CDC admitting its surface transmission is poor.
My developmentally disabled daughter was barely hanging on in school, performing 2 grades lower than her placement, and now she’s lost about half the preceding school year. The “distance learning” provided was pathetic and I doubt it’s going to get any better. Teachers sending out an email once a week and saying “go do this stuff, cya!” What a joke. They should be ashamed of themselves. It is absurd of any school to think I can work full time while providing the constant hand holding all day long that a disabled child requires to achieve any level of educational success.
If there’s a bright side to any of this, at least it will all be over and conveniently forgotten in November, right after the election.
James,
Muzzles are for aggressive dogs that like to bite! You know to protect yourself, liability of a dog bite, and protect those you choose to bring your dog around. Hope you and your family stay healthy.
Angie, the DOH numbers released today 7/5, for our state are that 10% of the “DEATHS” are in the 29-59 age group (school age parent age group). And 77% of cases in WA are in the 0-59 age group (children and school age parent age group). It’s not whether or not your child will become infected and harmed, it’s a question of whether or not your child or another child or someone else will become infected and spread harm to YOU! Or another parent, etc. And thus end up with kid’s parents dead or in the hospital unable to be a parent, work for months, and left with $?M medical bills, etc. No easy decision. But don’t over simplify it by saying kids don’t suffer the affects, so they should go to school. It’s not that simple. And you may change your tune when your kids infect you, your neighbor, your parents, and you rack up a $3M Bill in the hospital fighting for your life. When you may not win. 10% is a big number. No guarantees you win. Your point is valid, but it’s more complex than that.
82% of the state’s population is age 0-59, so of course that’s going to make up the majority of cases. In other news, state health officials have discovered that water is wet.
Considering the death rate is like 0.1%-0.4%, if 10% of deaths are of people 29-59, then the risk of death is 0.01%-0.04% for that age group. So approximately 50% of the state’s population has between one hundredth and four hundredths of one percent chance of dying, and that’s assuming they ever get infected. If you factored risk of infection in, which is far from 100%, you’re lowering it drastically more!
Funny how with all the talk of the spike in cases necessitating more control and infringement that the hospitals still aren’t overflowing and there are no mass graves being dug. Why is that? Because more testing equals more confirmed cases. It’s still spreading as it has been, and killing as few people as it has been.
Jack,
That’s quite an age range. 0-59? What about the age range 0-99?
You’re speculating so far from reality you should just stay inside and hope a meteor doesn’t hit your house.
Statistically the children would be safer wearing helmets to prevent from head injuries than they would not being in school.
What about the 0-110 demographic? Give me a break.