The Secaucus Board of Education has been working on the plan to reopen schools safely and effectively for the 2020-2021 school year. Although nothing has been finalized yet, the strategy is to split students into two groups where each group would alternate been attending school in person and attending remotely. The idea is that the first group would physically attend school two days out of the week (e.g., Monday and Tuesday) while the second group would do virtual learning during those days. Then, the second group would attend school physically on two other days (e.g., Wednesday and Thursday) while the first group does virtual learning. And on the last school day of the week (e.g., Friday), all students would do virtual learning. By splitting students into two groups like this, the school's capacity would essentially be reduced by 50%. This will allow students to be spread out in the classroom so that social distancing can be maintained.
To help finalize the details, the Secaucus School Board is asking the parents of students in Secaucus public schools to fill out an online survey. The following is the statement that was released:
Our district is planning an A/B schedule in which students will come to school for 2 days a week for in-person learning and work virtually for a certain number of days a week. Our district intends to follow all State and CDC guidelines to ensure that all staff and students are learning in an environment where all proper precautions have been taken. Although not finalized, we would like your input in order to help us complete our planning process.
The online survey can be found
here.
Unfortunately, there is no perfect solution because different parents have different priorities. Some parents desparately want school to return to normal because their kids need the school environment to learn effectively. Other parents are more concerned about the spread of the coronavirus and prefer their kids to continue doing remote learning exclusively. Then, there are those parents who need to send their kids back to school so that they can return to work. So it is definitely tough for the school board to find a solution that will please everyone. Hopefully, whatever the final plan is, parents will have some flexibility to customize the situation for their kids.
