Hoover schools delay start for 2020-21 academic year, require masks

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The Hoover school board on Monday night voted to delay the start of school from Aug. 6 to Aug. 20 and require masks for all students on buses and students in grades 3-12 at school.

Masks also will be strongly encouraged, but not required, for students in pre-kindergarten through second grade once they arrive at school.

It’s difficult to keep masks on young children, and health officials have indicated that younger children are not transmitting or contracting COVID-19 as much as others, Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy said.

A school system survey found that 71% of parents, 75% of school system employees and 63% of administrators favored the idea of requiring masks, Murphy said. Face shields and gaiter face masks will be acceptable options, she said.

Students can remove masks to eat meals or engage in outdoor physical education but otherwise must keep them on throughout the school day unless they have some special health issue or other special need for which they might be granted an exception, Murphy said.

With the growing number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, there has been a great deal of debate about whether schools should reopen for in-person instruction at all.

Some parents have asked why it is safe to have school now when it wasn’t safe in the spring when there were fewer cases of infections and hospitalizations.

Murphy said the decision to close schools in the spring was made at the state level, but now the authority has been given to local school systems and school officials have had more time to figure out how to provide an education in a safe manner.

Murphy said she has received emails and comments from people with a wide variety of opinions. There were just as many from people who emphatically want schools to open for academic and economic reasons as there were from people who don’t want kids to physically return to schools anytime soon, she said.

“I believe people want us to get back to school, but they want us to do it safely,” she said.

She has listened to how parents and employees feel and sought out technical information and advice from health officials, she said.

“I want to get this right.,” Murphy said. “I don’t know where COVID-19 is going, but I can assure you my heart is absolutely in the right place, and we have worked diligently to try to find the best solutions for the children in this school district. … We care about your kids. We want them to be safe, and we’ll do everything we can to ensure that.”

But her obligation is to make sure education is occurring, and while virtual learning is a viable option, she has a strong conviction that in-person instruction is superior, and she wants to get the school doors open, she said.

“I believe in teachers. I believe in in-person. I believe in relationships,” she said. “I believe this is all critical to our children and our learning.”

THREE LEARNING OPTIONS

That said, the school district will offer virtual options.

Ron Dodson, a central office administrator, said parents have three choices for their children: full-time in-person instruction, full-time virtual instruction or (for students in grades 6-12) and a blended learning model that includes both.

Hoover’s high schools have offered blended learning for several years, and he believes that could work effectively in the middle schools given the current environment, he said. Also, parents and students should know that certain elective and advanced courses will only be offered in person, he said. As of Monday night, parents of 2,421 students had requested full-time virtual learning for the beginning of this school year, Dodson said.

School officials have extended the deadline for parents to choose a virtual learning option to this Friday, July 17, and that deadline possibly could be extended further, he said.

Students in pre-kindergarten classes through eighth grade who choose virtual learning will be asked to commit to it for at least the first nine weeks, and high school students will be asked to commit to it for at least the first semester, Dodson said.

That’s because administrators must make staffing and logistical decisions to plan for both in-person and virtual learning so everyone can be properly prepared and organized for the school year, he said.

A lot of parents have been waiting for school officials to further explain what the in-person school environment would look like and what safety measures and protocols will be in place.

Murphy and Dodson said school officials can’t assure that students will be kept 6 feet apart.

That’s most apparent on buses. Even with 15 additional bus routes this year, students likely will be two to a seat, transportation coordinator Jeremy Bradford said. That’s why all students must wear masks on buses, Murphy said.

Bus drivers and aides also will wear masks at all times, and buses will be sanitized and disinfected daily after both morning and afternoon routes, Bradford said. Students will have assigned seats on the bus so they are sitting by the same person each day, and students who enter the bus first will sit in the back to limit interactions, he said.

Students also will be passing in the hallways, and while teachers can reorganize desks and tables, there isn’t enough physical space for everyone to be 6 feet apart in classrooms, Dodson said.

Many elementary classrooms no longer even have individual desks, with teachers having switched to tables with groups of students facing one another to encourage collaboration and group work, Murphy said.

Because of that, school officials have spent $66,000 to order 3,000 partitions to put between students who use shared tables, she said. Some of those partitions will be used for teachers’ desks, she said.

Classrooms will be cleaned according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations at a minimum, and all high touchpoint areas will be cleaned repeatedly throughout the day, said Matt Wilson, the school system’s coordinator of operations. Also, air conditioning systems will be operated and maintained in accordance with CDC recommendations to ensure air quality viability, Wilson said.

POSITIVE COVID-19 CASES

If a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19, that person’s classroom(s) or workspace will be quarantined for 24 hours, sanitized by the custodial staff and then deep-cleaned with a fogging machine that uses an antibacterial chemical, Wilson said. Similar procedures are in place for buses, Bradford said.

School officials are asking parents to check students’ temperatures and monitor them for COVID-19 symptoms in the morning before sending them to school. Students should be kept home if they have a temperature above 100 degrees or are showing COVID-19 symptoms, said Vicki Holden, the school system’s lead nurse. Students can return to school after being fever-free for 72 hours without medication, she said.

School officials do not plan to check all students’ temperatures at school but may do so randomly or as needed, Holden said. Students who have a temperature of 100 degrees or more or show COVID-19 symptoms will be sent home or sent to an isolation area until they can be picked up, she said.

Students who test positive for COVID-19 must stay out of school for 14 days from the onset of symptoms and be free of fever for 72 hours with improving symptoms or, if asymptomatic, stay home 14 days from the date they gave a specimen that resulted in a positive test. Another option would be to have two negative follow-up COVID-19 tests at least 24 hours apart, Holden said.

School officials still are working to develop protocols for notifying the parents of an infected students’ classmates and determining what all other students or staff need to be quarantined as well, Murphy said.

Jefferson County Health Officer Dr. Mark Wilson plans to meet with all Jefferson County school superintendents soon to discuss these matters, and the Alabama Department of Public Health is expected to release more guidance soon as well, Murphy said.

All students who eat school meals will be served in the cafeteria (except at Green Valley Elementary, where breakfast is served in classrooms), but some classes will eat in their classrooms, outdoors or other designated areas to help students spread out, child nutrition director Melinda Bonner said.

All food will be wrapped or put in disposable containers, whether or not students are eating in the lunchroom, and cashiers will enter students’ account numbers in the register instead of the students, she said. There will be no self-serve food bars or guests for meals, and cash will be discouraged, but allowed if necessary, for payment, she said.

Murphy said she understands that teachers and staff have concerns for their health and well-being as well, and school officials are being sensitive to that as they make decisions about staffing for this year.

By law, employees who test positive for COVID-19 can receive 100% of their pay while on leave for 10 days, and those who must take off work to care for a loved one with COVID-19 can receive up to 12 weeks of paid sick leave at two-thirds of their normal pay, Human Resources Director Mary Veal said. The latter also must use any personal leave they have after 10 days.

School officials are very concerned about having enough substitute teachers and bus drivers and are eager for people to apply to help.

SCHOOL CALENDAR CHANGES

School officials conducted surveys about whether to start school on Aug. 6, Aug. 13 or Aug. 20, and Aug. 20 was the preferred start date for 45% of parents, 57% of employees and 53% of administrators.

The later start date will allow more time for teachers to learn the new virtual curriculum, but it also will mean changes in the rest of the school calendar.

There will be no fall break, and instead of a full week out at Thanksgiving, the Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week will become e-learning days. Also, students will return to school after Christmas break on Jan. 4 instead of Jan. 6; students will come to school on Feb. 15 and April 9 instead of being off for teacher professional development days; and the last day of school for students will be May 27 instead of May 25.

There has been some discussion of making the time between Thanksgiving and the end of the year a 100% virtual learning time, Murphy said. Fifty-seven percent of parents, 68% of employees and 64% of administrators favored that option in surveys, but Murphy said she has not decided whether to recommend that yet.

Murphy also emphasized that school officials are making decisions based on the best information they have now and that decisions and policies could change any day as the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak changes and/or new information about the disease becomes available.

Dodson said situations could change that require entire schools or the entire school system to go into virtual learning mode at any time.

Hoover school officials have a lot of detailed information available on the school system website, including learning options, a health and safety plan, transportation plan, child nutrition plan, list of frequently asked questions, and a portal by which people can submit questions. However, the information is being updated and changed frequently.