Henrico Schools officials now weighing 2 primary in-person options for the coming school year

Henrico families learned more Tuesday night about what a return to school could look like this fall, even as county school system officials admitted they don’t have all the answers themselves.

At a community meeting at Glen Allen High School, Henrico Schools officials announced that the county’s school board would vote July 23 to select an in-person learning option for the system and that families and staff members would have until Aug. 2 to declare whether they’ll participate in that one for the first semester or choose a fully virtual plan instead.

Families would be able to switch from a virtual plan to an in-person plan during the second semester if they chose to do so, Superintendent Amy Cashwell implied, while also noting that some students who choose the in-person option likely may request to switch to the fully virtual one during the first semester, too, for health or other reasons.

What that in-person plan will look like, though – and how, exactly, it will work – is still unknown.

“This is an ongoing dialogue,” Cashwell told the 60 or so people in attendance and hundreds of others watching online. “We will continue to involve our employees and our families in taking the next steps together.”

The Henrico School Board, whose four members in attendance sat at tables roughly six feet apart Tuesday night (Three Chopt District member Micky Ogburn participated virtually) now appears primarily to be weighing two in-person plans for those who don’t opt for the fully virtual pathway:

• a hybrid learning plan, in which one group of students would learn in school Tuesdays and Thursdays while another learns virtually, before switching on Wednesdays and Fridays, with Mondays designated as a half-day of virtual learning for all students and a half-day teacher workday;

• a new five-day-per-week, in-person option, which would become possible as a result of a requirement that all staff members and students wear masks all day, unless they have documented health conditions that prevent it, Cashwell said.

Masks would allow for social distancing requirements to shrink in most cases from six feet to three, she said.

As part of a full-time return, elementary school students who attend school in person would remain with their teachers in their classrooms virtually all day, except for recess, as a way to limit interaction among students.

Middle and high school students who attend in-person classes would have no more than four periods during a school day, would move from class to class in typical fashion, but while practicing social distancing, and would be expected to assist teachers in cleaning their areas in each class, Cashwell said.

“We are considering all angles, and each of the approaches that I’ve mentioned to reopening come with challenges, unique considerations and lots of logistics for implementation,” Cashwell said.

[maxgallery id="47487"]Some lobby for virtual-only plan
Prior to the meeting, several dozen teachers and parents gathered in the parking lot of the school to advocate for a safe reopening of schools – with a number lobbying for only virtual schooling until the pandemic slows to no new cases for two weeks. Most are members of the HCPS Back to School Safely Facebook group, which counts more than 3,000 members and was created in part to counterbalance members of the Back to School Virginia group, which is advocating statewide for a full-time return to school.

School officials conceded that while they might like to wait longer to make their decision to allow for the most updated look at the COVID-19 situation locally, they need to allow time for families and staff members to determine their own courses of action and prepare for them in advance of the first day of school Sept. 8.

A survey conducted by the school system that closed July 5 found that 58 percent of the 13,476 families who responded said they would be very likely to send their students back to school in-person in some form, while 26 percent said they would be somewhat likely and 16 percent said not likely.

Asked which learning pathway they were most likely to select, 30.5 percent said the alternating days hybrid plan, 30.2 percent chose an alternating weeks hybrid plan and 16 percent selected the fully virtual plan. Just more than a quarter of the 50,406 survey recipients completed it, though only one response per household was permitted.

Tuckahoe District board member Marcie Shea said that as a former teacher, a parent of public school students and a cancer survivor, she could relate personally to every side of the discussion.

“We want each member of the community to know that you have been heard,” she said. “All of [administrative staff members’] work and our decisions are deeply rooted in care for your children.”

Cashwell and Shea made a point to differentiate between what the school system is now calling this past spring’s “emergency online learning” and the virtual instruction model that will be in place this fall.

The new virtual plan will be robust and feature live instruction with teachers, Shea said, describing a possible scenario in which an elementary school teacher might meet with her class virtually in the morning for half an hour, then separately with small groups of students consecutively while other students worked on assignments, before the entire class reconvened virtually.

“Frankly, in my opinion, it’s as close as we can get to bringing traditional school into your house,” Shea said.

A typical day for middle and high school students learning virtually would involve transitioning from one class to another, just as they would in person, Shea said.

Hotel would house quarantining staff members for free
Among new information presented at the meeting:

• integrated services students (who tend to require in-person instruction more than other students) may be able to attend school in person for 4.5 days a week, assuming the state remains in Phase Three of reopening;

• school system officials have contracted with a local hotel to provide free lodging for staff members who need to quarantine after possible exposure to COVID-19 but who don’t want to do so at home;

• officials hope to be able to place students who choose the fully virtual plan in virtual classes with other students – and a teacher – from their home schools, but that might not happen in every case, depending upon how many students and teachers from a given school opt for the plan;

• free COVID-19 testing for all staff members will be available as needed;

• teachers will be able to use as much as 80 hours of emergency paid leave and additional paid leave beyond that, through a federal COVID-19 policy or the existing FMLA policy, and virtual work options will be considered for employees who request it because of virus-related issues they or their families are experiencing.

Teachers are expected to be able to choose whether they want to teach in person or virtually, though whether the school system would overrule some of those requests if it needs more in-person teachers, for example, is unknown.

In a staff survey, less than half of all middle and high school employees who responded said they would agree or strongly agree that they would feel comfortable returning to in-person work once schools reopen. Just more than 56 percent of elementary school employees said the same. Nearly one-third of high school employees said they would feel not feel comfortable returning in person until after a vaccine had been released.

Should an outbreak occur at a school, officials would work with the Henrico Health Department to determine whether quarantine was necessary for a group of students and staff members, an entire class, an entire grade level or the entire school, Chief of Staff Beth Teigen said.

Some teachers on the HCPS Back to School Safely Facebook group have discussed the possibility of refusing en masse to return to work in person, as a way of forcing the school system’s hand to a fully virtual model.

To read the results of the Henrico Schools’ back-to-school surveys and view other related information, visit https://henricoschools.us/returntoschool.

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