In a letter dated Aug. 4, Superintendent of Schools Brian White announced that the Region 4 school district would employ a hybrid model upon reopening for the 2020–’21 school year, with students attending classes in person two days a week for the first six weeks of school.

White cautioned the educational community to be mindful of the fluidity of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that the district would probably use more than one of the three options presented to the state in late July, in-person, hybrid, or remote learning, throughout the year.

“A key to our success this year will be our flexibility and adaptability to changing circumstances,” he said in the letter.

The district is committing to this hybrid model until Oct. 13. After this date, there could potentially be a change to full-day in-person classes.

Presentation of Reopening Models

White presented information on all three scenarios at a joint Board of Education (BOE) meeting held on Aug. 4; the presentation can be viewed on the district’s webpage reg4.k12.ct.us.

Due to widespread power outages as a result of Tropical Storm Isaias that left many parents and community stakeholders without the opportunity to hear his presentation and publicly comment, the BOE was scheduled to hold a second meeting detailing school reopening scenarios on Aug. 12.

On Aug. 4, White discussed the full reopening scenario, in which students and staff would attend school in-person for five days a week.

He also explained the hybrid model, or what he described as the “partial reopening model.” This is when half of the student body attends classes in-person while the other half attends remotely on Monday and Tuesday. The school would be closed on Wednesday for a deep cleaning with both groups switching up learning modes for classes on Thursday and Friday.

These first two scenarios are replete with new safety requirements for students and staff including the mandatory use of face masks and frequent hand washing.

New social-distancing protocols would be implemented throughout the school building, including in the classroom. Other restrictions on communal spaces such as the cafeteria, gatherings for assemblies and visitors, as just a few examples, would also be in place.

Modifications to the operations of the physical school buildings would include increased cleaning and ongoing maintenance to ventilation systems.

White discussed plans for an occurrence of the virus in the school community with either the full in-person or hybrid scenarios. All school buildings have a designated “containment room” where a student exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 would wait to be picked up by a parent or guardian. Any school closures, whether for short- or long-term durations, would depend on the circumstances of the infected individual.

To help prevent widespread contamination if there were an outbreak, White stressed throughout his presentation, the importance of cohorts, or small groups of students, that have limited interaction with other groups.

Specifically, at John Winthrop Middle School (JWMS) and Valley Regional High School (VRHS), both schools would move, for the 2020-’21 school year only, to what he described as a “block scheduling concept.”

“The block configuration really does allow us to achieve to a large extent a cohorting concept and also has a number of other side benefits in terms of minimizing class size, reducing the number of transitions that occur in the building during the day. And so, there were a lot of health-oriented benefits to running a block configuration,” said White.

The third, and last, model would be a return to remote learning, which occurred in the spring after the spread of COVID-19 led the state to shut-down the schools.

Toward the end of his presentation, White touched on extra-curricular activities, sports and after-school care, with a promise that more information in these areas would be forthcoming from building principals and his office in the weeks ahead.

White also responded to several questions posed by members of the joint BOE related to the role of local health departments for testing if there is an outbreak in the schools, whether the block configuration at JWMS and VRHS could cause educational regression for students and the costs associated with implementing COVID-19 changes for the 2020–’21 school year.

“It is likely we’re going to have to make adjustments as we go,” said White at the Aug. 4 meeting. “I am confident that we have some very strong plans in place, but you can’t plan for everything and we just have to remain adaptable and flexible because the situation has been changing constantly.”

Changes to the 2020–’21 School Year Calendar

The Supervision District Committee for Chester, Deep River, Essex. and Region 4 voted to approve several modifications to the 2020-’21 academic calendar at its special meeting on Aug. 4.

The school year will commence for teachers and staff on Monday, Aug. 24, with a series of professional development days until Monday, Aug. 31.

This change was made “to help prepare and train staff, to get our buildings ready to receive students,” White said.

The first day of school for students would be on Tuesday, Sept. 1, which is an early release day. To help students and staff adjust to wearing face masks, a series of early release days will follow through Friday, Sept. 4.

“So, one of the concerns being that it is still warm weather this time of the year, we recognize that [face masks are] going to be a significant adjustment for our students coming back as well as our staff that perhaps have not been wearing masks for several hours a day in a workplace setting over the summer,” said White.

Another reason for the early release days is to acclimate students and staff to any new procedures or safeguards against contracting COVID-19.

“There is just a lot of new things we’re going to be implementing simultaneously and so by running essentially half days, that allows us to implement those things in a very manageable way and frankly to make sure that everything we have in place is as effective as intended to be,” said White.

After the Labor Day holiday on Monday, Sept. 7, full school day classes for students and staff would resume on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

The remainder of the 2020-’21 school year calendar, approved in December 2019, will stay the same. Per the State of Connecticut, the school year will consist of 177 full days instead of the typical 180 days.