Will N.J. schools be ready to reopen in the fall? Inside the scramble for an elusive plan. – NJ.com

After a decade as a school superintendent, Eric Hibbs likes to think he can plan for anything.

Masks. Social distancing. Split scheduling. An inordinate supply of hand sanitizer. Whatever it takes to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic, the superintendent of the Marlboro Township School District can probably figure it out as long as he knows what is required, he said.

But the state has yet to provide instructions for reopening schools this fall. With summer nearly here, Hibbs needs to start making decisions soon if he’s going have 4,700 students in classrooms come September, he said.

“We need some guidance,” Hibbs said. “We are essentially planning for everything, which unfortunately is not the best business practice. But it’s the reality.”

With fewer than three months until the start of next school year, New Jersey districts remain in the dark about exactly what the state will require for reopening more than 2,500 public schools. Local officials with no clear directives are creating multiple reopening plans, hoping one fits within the state guidance when it arrives.

In some ways, the situation feels like a mission from a Navy SEALs movie, said Robert Zywicki, superintendent of the Mount Olive Township School District.

“Plan A never happens. The helicopter crashes. Something else goes wrong,” Zywicki said. “They always save the day with Plan C.”

Gov. Phil Murphy has said guidance on school reopenings should come sometime this month. State Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet said this week that a plan from his department will be presented to the governor’s office around June 15. It’s unclear how long it could take for those directives to be finalized.

Many superintendents say they have no time to waste.

Instead of waiting, school leaders are turning to the same resources as parents and teachers — CDC guidelines, reopening plans from other states and news stories about schools abroad that have already restarted.

Will local schools be required to do health screenings beyond temperature checks? Will split schedules be mandatory? How many students will be allowed on a bus? Superintendents can’t say for sure.

The need for answers to hundreds of burning questions has created a sense of urgency for comprehensive state instructions.

“I think people just want to hear whatever it is,” said state Sen. Teresa Ruiz, D-Essex, chair of the Senate Education Committee. “They want to hear it sooner rather than later.”

Superintendents have already foreshadowed new safety measures such as mandatory temperature checks, masks for all students, lunch served in the classroom and limited movement throughout the school. Classes could be pushed into gymnasiums, auditoriums and other large spaces to accommodate social distancing.

But some educators worry the quest for details has distracted from an underlying question: Does the benefit of reopening schools without a vaccine outweigh the potential health risks and significant expenses of creating a strange, socially distant learning experience?

“Our schools are wonderful, vibrant, social places,” said Barbara Sargent, superintendent of the Parsippany-Troy Hills School District. “If social distancing continues to be a recommendation… many will question, quite reasonably, whether it’s worth opening at all.”

Michael Salvatore recently started his day with some light reading.

Six reports about reopening schools. Hundreds of pages. Thousands of details to consider as he plots the return of students to the Long Branch Public Schools.

“My colleagues throughout the country are reading the plans from other states and other countries,” said Salvatore, New Jersey’s 2019 Superintendent of the Year. “And we are learning a lot.”

Salvatore’s biggest concern is what responsibility schools will have for health screening. The first step toward reopening, according to a CDC graphic for schools, should be the capacity to screen students and staff for symptoms and history of exposure. Schools also need the ability to “protect children and employees at higher risk for severe illness,” the federal agency said.

Salvatore read about a school in Germany that reopened with a tent outside for COVID-19 testing. Students swabbed their own throats and later received a green sticker to wear if they tested negative, according to a New York Times report.

He has no idea how his district would execute something like that on its own.

“We simply don’t have the capacity to do it, nor do we have the guidance or resources to do that,” Salvatore said.

Some districts have ordered no-touch temporal thermometers and considered hiring part-time nurses or other medical staff who can conduct daily temperature screenings. That check alone won’t identify every student or staff member with COVID-19, yet any testing beyond that seems out of reach for schools to coordinate on their own, some superintendents said.

“What we really need from the state are very clear decisions about testing and the screening portion, because I think until that is determined, all those other things are just details,” Sargent said. “Those are very big decisions that need to be communicated to schools.”

Students appear to be at a lower risk than adults for serious health problems related to the coronavirus. But any school reopening plan also needs to protect staff members, including those who are older or immunocompromised. Several teachers who didn’t plan to retire after this year, but are eligible to receive their pensions, have already considered walking away, said Anthony Rosamilia, president of the Essex County Education Association.

“Many of them have called me saying, ‘Can I get a consultation in regards to retirement?’” said Rosamilia, a history teacher at Livingston High School. “If we are forced to go back without a vaccine, they just don’t feel comfortable.”

That sentiment isn’t an indictment of state or local leaders, Rosamilia said. It simply illustrates the precarious situation schools will be thrust into this fall.

“I think it’s important for people to understand that schools and social distancing really don’t go together very well at all,” Rosamilia said.

The New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, issued its own recommendations for reopening schools. The union suggests that districts make it voluntary for teachers and students with high-risk health conditions to come to back during the first wave of reopenings.

Rosamilia compared schools to meat-packaging plants, which have become hot spots for COVID-19 outbreaks. There are hundreds of people inside a school for six to eight hours, side-by-side, day after day.

“That is a perfect environment for spread,” Rosamilia said.

It’s not the kind of meeting a superintendent usually takes.

When Marlboro’s business office scheduled a Zoom call with the district’s hand sanitizer sales rep, Hibbs decided he had to be involved. After all, CDC reopening guidelines say students must wash or sanitize their hands after every cough or sneeze.

“How long will 128 ounces of Purell actually last?” Hibbs said. “That is what we are trying to figure out —and manically. We have what we think would work based upon the (school reopening) guidance from Massachusetts.”

This is the kind of micro decision-making now dominating officials’ time as they dive deeper into what it really looks like to bring students back to school.

Salvatore’s staff in Long Branch has examined the square footage of classrooms to plan for spreading desks six feet apart. They’ve considered how to stagger arrival and departure times to eliminate crowding. They’ve studied options for serving lunch in classrooms, contemplated asking teachers to rotate rooms instead of students and envisioned rapid-fire cleaning that would typically occur overnight.

In Mount Olive, where the administration presented four reopening options to the school board, officials are planning for one-way hallways and designated “up” and “down” stairwells. The plan mentions the possibility of outdoor classes in good weather and calls for an isolation zone for students who start feeling sick after the school day begins.

Districts are also earnestly planning for the likelihood of split schedules — either morning and afternoon sessions or alternating days. Many districts would struggle to fit all students inside their buildings at once with social distancing in place, superintendents said.

Just getting them to school might be an even bigger challenge for districts, Hibbs said.

They will be hard-pressed to fit all their students on buses with anticipated restrictions on the number of passengers.

To get every student to school, Hibbs estimates one of his buildings could need seven times as many bus runs to prevent students from sitting too close together.

“Mathematically, there is just no way for districts to do it,” Hibbs said.

Robert Beers has the same question every other school administrator wants answered.

The Manville School District superintendent needs to know how districts are supposed to pay for socially distant schooling.

Manville is already chronically underfunded by the state, Beers said. Nearly half its student body is economically disadvantaged. And now, the district is trying to figure out how it will pay for masks, extra cleaning supplies and other unforeseen expenses to bring students back to the classroom.

“There are plenty of similar districts like Manville, where it is going to be more of a struggle than your wealthier counterparts just because of the bare bones operations that (they) run,” Beers said.

The average American school district, with about 3,600 students, will need to spend an extra $1.7 million next school year because of COVID-19 precautions, according to a new projection by the national School Superintendents Association.

Even in smaller districts, a hit like that will be painful considering the coronavirus’ impact on state funding, school officials said.

Last month, Murphy’s administration slashed $335 million in school funding from its proposed 2020-21 budget. The move wipes out funding increases as large as $36 million and affects hundreds of districts that had already built aid increases into their budgets.

The obstacles are so substantial, some school leaders have seriously questioned the feasibility of opening in September.

“We’re talking about expenses that would double and triple just to be able to accommodate social distancing measures in the classroom, in buses,” said David Healy, superintendent of the Toms River Regional School District. “You’re talking contractual concerns with our bargaining units. Health concerns. Concerns that are legitimate.”

Healy suggested districts would be better positioned to reopen in January after saving several months of operating expenses. While that may be beneficial for schools, it seems unlikely, said Richard Bozza, the executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators.

Many parents can’t go back to work until schools reopen, making a fall opening not only a key in the return to normalcy, but to the state’s economic recovery.

“My bias is gonna be: We’ve got to find a way to get back into the buildings,” Murphy said in May. “That’s my going-in bias. Again, it’s got to be done right and responsibly.”

Repollet knows all eyes are on the state, waiting for guidance. And there’s a reason it hasn’t come yet, he said.

“We felt if we sit and wait a little bit, our plan will be more specific,” he told a panel of state lawmakers this week.

Guidance from the federal government has been “all over the place,” leaving some officials gun-shy about acting on it, he said.

“Everything is brand new,” Repollet said. “Some of the guidance has been kind of general and vague.”

New Jersey officials have been deep in discussions about how to reopen, Repollet said. He speaks regularly with school chiefs from other states. His team has met with dozens of education groups. And a task force of district leaders has developed recommendations for the education department.

The state wants to ensure its guidance is robust and fully meets the needs of all school districts, said Mike Yaple, spokesman for the state Department of Education.

“We’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time listening to the feedback, concerns and challenges of stakeholders across the board,” Yaple said. “This has included superintendents, principals, teachers, buildings and grounds supervisors, school board members, parents, school support staff, school nurses and psychologists, and health officials.”

The Education Department also surveyed parents on their feelings about sending students back to school in masks and their confidence in virtual learning, among other issues.

Beginning the school year with reduced capacity in buildings and split schedules for students remains an option, Repollet said. However, he understands that would be a concern for many parents, he added.

On Friday, the state issued long-awaited guidance for summer school programs, which involve significantly fewer students.

Schools can continue with virtual programs or begin in-person instruction beginning July 6. The major safety precautions are the same as summer camps: check temperatures, require masks, social distance when possible and stagger arrival and dismissal times.

Some superintendents said the state waited too long to provide summer school guidance and their schools won’t be able to reopen.

They’re hoping the same thing doesn’t happen this fall.

David Aderhold, superintendent of the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District, has compiled a list of key questions schools need answered. It started with 91 questions and has since ballooned to 284.

“Without clear guidance on how to prepare for the fall semester, the public health will be compromised,” Aderhold wrote recently. “The planning for September happens now. We cannot wait.”

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Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.