Hurley School Board to revisit startup plan

By TOM LAVENTURE

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Hurley — It has only been one week since the Hurley Public School Board decided to start the school year in the classroom with a virtual learning option — but a special meeting tonight will revisit the decision in part for updated information regarding COVID-19 cases in Iron County.

“The magnitude of this decision is great and with school only a week away, it’s imperative that the board reviews the plan a final time to determine if it’s the most appropriate given our current situation,” said Kevin Genisot, school administrator in the Monday announcement.

The meeting will also be to revisit the board’s approval of the fall sports programs and schedules.

If the school board decides to stay with its Aug. 17 decision, the administrators said they are confident they have taken the steps to reduce the risk of community spread as much as possible.

“Our staff did a phenomenal job transitioning to virtual learning in the spring, but we did run into obstacles we couldn’t anticipate,” said Steve Lombardo, elementary school principal. “Our teachers are ready to provide our students with the highest quality of education in the safest environment possible.”

The in-person and virtual instruction for elementary school students will be five days per week. The students will remain with their classroom “cohort” and teachers will be available in school from 7:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. Some of the lessons will be recorded and posted on Google Classroom.

For students and parents who choose the virtual learning option, the teachers have experience from last March through May to help provide education that is parallel to that of students in the classrooms, he said. Ideally, he said it is preferable for all students to be in the classrooms as soon as it is safe to do so.

“When we closed our doors in March, we quickly discovered the vital role our school building plays and how important it was for our teachers and staff to stay connected with our students,” Lombardo said. “As educators, I feel, under the given circumstances like we are all starting year one. We will share that mindset to collaborate, plan and support each other to have a very successful school year.”

Melissa Oja, middle school and high school principal, said the students in grades 6-12 will still operate under the bell schedule. She and the staff are excited to see the kids in the classroom or on the computer screen depending on how the school year begins with in person, synchronous classes via Google Meet or Odysseyware, an online curriculum vendor.

“We took the information as it came and tried to do our best to accommodate students and staff needs,” Oja said. “We have a solid plan to get our first week of school and have teachers working with students.”

The work to troubleshoot the “glitches” is ongoing and will continue into the school year, she said. The goals are about talking things over behind the scenes and finding solutions.

It helps that the students, teachers and staff have been using Google Meet and other online file-sharing systems for some time, she said. Most course materials and assignments are already transferred using this method.

Virtual students attend live in-class lessons through Google Meet on their school Macbooks where the teacher audio and video appear as a traditional classroom environment. Virtual students have a raised hand feature to alert the teacher that they wish to communicate.

Students choosing the Odysseyware option will be working with Daniel Perlberg, who will oversee students using the third-party learning system. The Hurley teacher, along with the parents, have the ability to observe the student’s work online to provide feedback and follow the progress.

“Synchronous classes via Google Meet and Odysseyware are similar, but different,” Oja said. “With Odysseyware, they may be attending college classes and won’t have to log in at a specific time as students do with the bell schedule. It’s self paced.”

The three options will help the school work through any barriers that a family might have with individualized learning, she said.

Kids are resilient, adaptive and will thrive in the new normal with proper direction, according to Genisot. Teachers will be educating students on why social distancing, washing hands and wearing masks are important for the first few weeks but the focus will be on academics.

The students will come into the main entrance in the morning and go to one of five screening stations to prevent crowding. The elementary kids will be screened in their own hallway and cohort level.

If someone’s temperature is 100.4 degrees or higher they go to the office and are checked again in 5 minutes. If the temperature is still high they wait in a designated virus waiting area until parents are contacted.

There is new kitchen equipment that will keep food warm while it is transported to elementary school kids who eat in their classrooms. Internal doors will be propped open to reduce the need to touch. Sinks, water fountains, soap and paper towel dispensers are now all touchless.

The school has ordered 22 mobile hand sanitizer stations. They will be placed around the school and in the commons for students to wash hands and avoid crowds in the restrooms.

“Making sure that kids sanitize their hands and touch points is important but probably more important is to educate the kids of why they are doing what they’re doing because now there is meaning to it,” Genisot said. “We don’t want them scared but we want to educate them because to us it’s much more than just doing it while they’re at school. We want them to do it while they’re at the store or at home so they are cleaning all the time. Those are life lessons that are truly more important than just a snapshot of the school.”

There are around 530 kids registered to attend Hurley School this fall, slightly down from last year, Genisot said. Most class sizes are at about 22 kids which makes it possible to space them 3 to 4 feet apart.

There will be even fewer students in the classrooms with some of them choosing virtual learning, he said. This will keep class sizes even smaller and help with prevention goals.

Younger children up to middle school like to socialize and have close interaction. A goal of distancing information is not to scare them but to educate them about what people need to do to be safer at this time and why.

“We’ll say, ‘it’s okay, we’ll get through this and here is what we’re going to do,’” Genisot said.