West Orange Teachers Again Voice Concerns Ahead of Hybrid Reopening – TAPinto.net

WEST ORANGE, NJ — The West Orange Board of Education (WOBOE) welcomed new member Melinda Huerta during its reorganization meeting and introduced incumbent board members Terry Trigg-Scales and Jennifer Tunnicliffe as the new president and vice president, respectively.

But even though this was the board’s first meeting of 2021, this did not distract from the lingering concerns that many West Orange teachers felt as the district approaches its transition from all-remote to hybrid on Jan. 19.

As predicted in his Dec. 4 correspondence to the community, West Orange Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Scott Cascone explained that it would be safe to go back to school in the upcoming weeks because of a sustained reduction in cases since Nov. 2019 and reaching a local positivity rate of 8.02 percent.

“Having set that as the benchmark, I knew that we needed to begin the preparations to open so that if and when we saw the positivity rate dip below 10 percent, we’d be prepared to open,” he said. “So really, those projections and planning have sort of played out more or less exactly as how we expected they would.”

With West Orange now in the moderate range of risk, plans are already in motion to send out bus passes and to send out an updated hybrid instruction handbook on Monday, Jan. 11.

After that, the district will be open for all staff to return starting on Jan. 19 with preschoolers and autistic students; followed by elementary students grades K-2 on Jan. 25 with K-12 students with intellectual and behavioral disabilities, with students in the 18-21 program, and students K-5 with language learning disabilities. General education students from grades 3-5 are slated to return on Feb. 1 and grades 6-12 will return on Feb. 8.

Cascone also said that although the district will not be requiring students to be tested before coming back to school, the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) recommends that children who have COVID-like symptoms should not return to school until they have received a negative test or “have completed an isolation period of at least 10 days since symptom onset and at least 24 hours after resolution of fever without fever-reducing medications with symptom improvement.”

During public comment, Roosevelt Middle School teacher Jay Wecht, likened returning to school like returning to a building that is still on fire, while schools in neighboring towns including Newark, East Orange, Bloomfield and Nutley are planning to reopen at later dates.

Others, like West Orange High School teacher Deb Coen. said that while teaching virtually is a challenge, “if we wait until teachers are eligible and can get their [vaccine] doses, then they will be protected, and the lack of student testing will be less of a problem.”

She added that the vaccine will “add a layer of safety that is necessary for a hybrid return to school.”

Lauryn Weinshank, a West Orange parent and essential worker, countered Coen’s point explaining that it did not make sense to wait until all teachers were vaccinated because it could take until the spring.

“I myself am vaccinated; I work in a hospital; I received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine,” she said. “You are not fully vaccinated or immune until a period of time after your second dose. That will put us back at least until April or May assuming everybody gets vaccinated.”

Donna Plantier, another West Orange parent and essential government worker who works for Essex County added that she was “saddened” by the teachers concerns with returning to school because her kindergartner is not thriving virtually.

“I wanted to commend the superintendent and the board of education with the fact of possibly doing hybrid, but quite frankly, if hybrid doesn’t happen in the next couple of weeks, as a family, we have to figure out what we’re going to do.”

Monica Nieves, a teacher who lives in West Orange, but teaches five miles away in Essex County, said that it was “disheartening” to hear West Orange teachers list reasons why they should not return to school.

“This has been going on for 10 months now,” she said. “And the longer that it goes on, the harder the transition is going to be for the teachers and the students. For me to keep hearing teachers say how hybrid is going to be so awful really bothers me, especially for teachers who have not done it.”

Nieves continued that teachers need to focus on the “whole child,” because of the mental health issues that have arisen because of the pandemic.

“We need to stop letting fear dictate our decisions and look at the science. Numerous studies are saying schools are not spreading COVID; they’re not superspreaders,” she said.

In response to the teachers who have concerns about going back, Cascone said that “the horse has left the stable in terms of discussing the merits or challenges and the difficulties of the hybrid model.”

“Because the hybrid model is the plan that we’ve developed,” he continued. “It was the plan that was board approved, it was the plan that was accepted by the county, it’s the plan we’ve been preparing for, it’s the plan that we’ve invested thousands of dollars into implementing.”

He added that even though he is under “soul-crushing pressure” when he hears the teachers who are concerned about their health and the health of their loved ones, the end game was always to “provide some on-site instruction to students.”

The WOBOE also recognized Gregory Elementary teacher Mary Jane Carr, who will be retiring after teaching in the district for 25 years, and bus monitor Phyllis Jackson, who will be retiring after 32 years in the district.

The WOBOE has a virtual policy workshop on Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. and a regular WOBOE meeting on Jan. 25. The location is still to be determined.

Visit woboe.org/covid19 for district related information about COVID-19.