Three visitors to the noon meeting of the Bradford Area School District Monday brought questions regarding the fall and left with some answers and continuing unknowns.
Michelle Barnhart, who is a parent of two students in the district and also a teacher for a cyber charter school, requested clarification and shared her concerns regarding the plans for the online program for the fall. She noted that she hopes to keep her two students enrolled in the Bradford school district but has concerns they won’t have a teacher interacting with them through the online platform, which is how she intends for them to receive their education. She cited concerns with wearing masks as the reason she is opting for the online route.
A discussion was held that included Superintendent Katy Pude and Assistant Superintendent Sam Johnson, as well as the other board members. They noted that administrators are not yet aware of how many parents are opting for online versus in-person education for the fall. The deadline for providing that information was Friday, and the numbers are being tallied.
Pude and Johnson both explained that the district’s goal is to have teachers who are dedicated to online classes and others who will be handling in-person education. For the older students, the intent will be for teachers to handle in-person education the majority of the day and a single period (or more as needed) for the specialty they are hired to teach (biology, math, English etc…).
Debbie Anthony, who has two grandchildren with health issues who will be attending school online from home in the fall, also noted she is hoping they will be able to attend through the district but had concerns she hoped to have addressed.
One point was whether students who attend either the online program through the district or another online charter school would be permitted to participate in the athletics programs for the district.
Johnson and Pude confirmed that, provided the student met the criteria of having the grades and attendance record set by the district, they would be permitted to participate in after-school extracurricular activities. However, programs or special classes held during the school day (for example, Jazz Band) are not something in which students who attend online programs can participate.
Tanya Slater, who was the final visitor to speak, noted she has three children in the district, including one set to attend Kindergarten. As a nurse, she is concerned with the way masks will be monitored and with the potential spread of germs for in-person education when students return to school in the fall.
Slater asked about monitoring mask use, if additional staff would be needed to help with the younger students, and she also asked if additional nurses would be hired.
“How does this work for a five-year-old?” Slater asked.
According to Pude and Board President Shane Oschman, this is not an area with a clear answer as of yet.
Board member Carla Manion, who had mentioned the possibility of clear face shields earlier in the meeting, revisited that topic, at which point Slater noted she had reached out to School Street Elementary Principal Sarah Tingley and had been told those would not be an acceptable option.
Tingley, seated in the audience, confirmed that information was sent out, and Pude pointed out that was an area that had changed in the course of the district’s attempts to set clear guidelines. As of Thursday, the Pennsylvania Department of Education had clarified to districts that clear face shields are an option, where previously that was not the case.
“You wonder why we have limited the amount of information that goes out, because by the time we send an email, it isn’t accurate,” Oschman said.
When Slater noted that parents are just looking for continuity for their children, Oschman responded by saying, “Unfortunately, the state is not offering that to us right now. They are changing every day and conflicting with the CDC sometimes. We are getting this pulled together as quickly as we can, but we can’t give the firm answers that everybody wants right now. It’s literally changing every day.”
Slater asked again about the online program, noting that “we just need to know what that looks like,” at which point Oschman stated that had already been addressed in the meeting.
“We are not required to respond to these questions, we want to. We are trying to respond to them, and I think we have given a lot of information,” Oschman said. “We are not going to have every t crossed and every i dotted yet, because it’s still July.
“And this stuff is moving every day, it’s a moving target.”
Oschman noted that there have been “countless hours to get as far as we’ve come,” and shared the personal opinion that the state reopened too soon.
Pude stated that “no one has been in this situation” before. Manion stated, “This is the times we are in, we have to just adapt, it’s a matter of getting people, I don’t want to say trained but getting new habits established. Over time, it becomes a new habit, like tying their shoe.
“Once the routine is established, I think things kind of take care of themselves. For teachers it’s going to be more challenging. We all have to make adaptations to what is,” she said.
Following the meeting, Slater voiced her continuing frustration with the unknowns and noted that, “(the school district) says our taxes will go up if we put our children in online charter schools, but when it comes to how they are going to handle school for our children, they have no answers.”
