Reports on School Reopening
Week 4 - Meetings between July 20 - 24, 2020
Committees on curriculum and instruction, health and wellness, operations, and student activities and sports have been created to analyze the pros, cons, and implications of scenarios under consideration to re-open schools in August and assist in the development of our health and safety plan.
Committee membership comprises students and families, members of the Cheltenham Educators’ Association (CEA), Business Employees’ Council (BEC), school board, and Cheltenham community, and school-level and central office administrators. These committees will continue to meet once a week through the week of July 27.
Following every meeting, the subcommittees will share with the community written reports outlining how each of the aforementioned areas will be addressed. Administration will present the final plan to the board of school directors on Monday, August 3. The first day of school is Monday, Aug. 31. All school reopening information is available at cheltenham.org/road2reopening.
Please send your questions, comments and concerns to schoolreopeningcommittee@cheltenham.org. Queries will be routed to the appropriate sub-committee.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Curriculum and Instruction
We spent the remaining time discussing what a transition to “yellow and red phases” would look like. We want to be prepared to seamlessly modify our selected instructional model when necessary. Dr. Smith acknowledged areas of improvement that we need to demonstrate from our offerings in the spring where we had little to no time for adequate preparation. With the current additional time to process our plan with all stakeholders, we want to be prepared to offer a more comprehensive and rigorous instructional program in the fall.
Recommendations for the yellow and red phases include:
100% remote learning
Opportunities for daily synchronous interactions between students and teachers
Synchronous instruction that extends beyond social-emotional interactions offered in the spring
Synchronous instruction in all core content and specialist areas
Asynchronous instruction that complements synchronous offerings in all core content and specialist areas
Synchronous and asynchronous interventions
Meaningful ways to utilize all professional and paraprofessional staff for curriculum and instruction
Collaboration with instructional programming companies to ensure our materials and resources can be modified for use in a remote learning environment
Offer consistent professional development opportunities for teachers and other instructional staff
Create a Google Sites webpage dedicated to parent/guardian training and resources
Include instructional resources to assist students at varying grade levels in the transition to synchronous and asynchronous learning
Wednesday will retain the same purpose as outlined in the green phase
Additional Considerations
Evaluations and reevaluations will need to be completed upon opening. A meeting was held with the school psychologists through guidance from legal counsel to create a process for reissuing permissions to complete evaluations.
Students with speech and language needs:
Several speech therapists provide services to multiple schools as well as the students on their caseload will require TeleTherapy.Next meeting: Wednesday, July 29, 10 a.m. The agenda will be a review of the final draft plan.
Health and Wellness
The Health and Wellness Committee met on Thursday, July 23 to review a draft of the district’s health and safety plan. Committee members specifically reviewed components of the monitoring student and staff health section of the plan relating to the following: monitoring students and staff for symptoms and history of exposure; isolating or quarantining students, staff, or visitors if they become sick or demonstrate a history of exposure; returning isolated or quarantined staff, students, or visitors to school; notifying staff, families, and the public of school closures and within-school-year changes in safety protocols; protecting students and staff at higher risk for severe illness; use of face coverings; and strategic deployment of staff.
Next Meeting: Thursday, July 30, 10 a.m. The agenda includes reviewing other sections of the draft health and safety plan, and reviewing inquiries/comments that were unable to be addressed due to time constraints. View the slide deck> | Read the meeting minutes> | Committee membership>
Operations
The operations committee convened its fourth meeting on Wednesday July 22, and the group discussed the operational aspects of reopening under yellow and green stages, and the logistics of reopening under the guidance of six feet social distancing. The group worked through the draft plan, focusing on the operational aspect of each section.
View the slide deck> | Read the meeting minutes> | Committee membership>
Next Meeting: Wednesday, July 29, 10 a.m. The agenda includes a review the final draft plan for reopening.
Student Activities and Sports
The Student Activities and Sports Committee hosted its fourth meeting on Zoom on Tuesday, July 21, and the group reviewed a draft of CSD’s student activities and sports health and safety plan, which consists of four sections:
- Risk assessment includes definitions and rankings of activities from lowest to highest risk.
- Safety measures covers green and yellow phase guidelines for pre-practice / competition screening; social distancing; social distancing during contests / events / activities; limitations on gatherings (different for green and yellow); use of PPE; student-athlete and marching band member interaction; hydration; transportation / travel (different for green and yellow); coach / marching band staff guidelines; cleaning / disinfecting; educating participants and other considerations.
- Guidelines for exclusion and reinstatement explains the steps needed if a student exhibits any COVID-19 symptoms.
- Guidelines for Student Activities & Groups offers reminders and best practices for how students can host indoor (not recommended), outdoor and virtual meetings for student activities and groups.
Next Meeting: Tuesday, July 28, 10 a.m. The group will review the final version of the CSD student activities and sports health and safety plan.