WOSD moves ahead with reopening following town hall – Essex News Daily
WEST ORANGE, NJ — The West Orange School District announced it would move forward with reopening school buildings to begin a hybrid learning model on Jan. 22, in a letter to district families from Superintendent Scott Cascone. Phase 2 of the reopening began on Jan. 25, with students in kindergarten through second grade returning to school on a rotating basis, along with all students who have intellectual and learning disabilities, students in the age 18 to 21 program, and learning language disabled students. Preschool and autistic students returned on Jan. 19. On Feb. 1, third through fifth grade students will return, and on Feb. 8 middle and high school students will return.
“After months of planning and careful and painstaking deliberation, with the full support of the Board of Education, I am authorizing the commencement of Phase 2 of the staggered implementation of the hybrid plan on Monday, Jan. 25,” Cascone said in the letter.
The district will evaluate progress on a weekly basis and, according to Cascone, will adjust, pivot or pause the phased reopening of schools if it is advised by public health and medical authorities.
“It bears mentioning that both the success of this endeavor as well as the safety of our students and staff will be determined in part by how responsibly and seriously our families take precautions while their children are not in school,” he said. “This is an oath of the utmost importance, which I am asking all families to take solemnly.”
The letter was sent to the community the morning after a public town hall with Cascone, central office administrators and local health officials discussing the reopening of school buildings. Several other medical professionals who work in the state were also at the meeting.
Cascone explained at the meeting that the district relied on local positivity rates of COVID-19 to determine when it would be safe to reopen schools, and the change in how the positivity rate has changed. According to Office of Emergency Management coordinator Nick Allegrino, the old formula determined the rate when comparing positive cases to the total number of tests given; the current formula uses the last seven days of tests administered.
“When you change that formula, what we saw was that the positivity rate actually went down,” Cascone said at the meeting.
Jill Chasse, an epidemiology specialist who teaches at William Paterson University, said more recent data is more accurate when determining if schools should be opening now.
“That’s definitely what you need to look at,” Chasse said at the meeting. “It’s not the data all along, it’s within the last 14 days. Since we’re more than 14 days since the last holiday, I agree.”
Rutgers Health Dr. Damali Campbell said that different parts of the same city could have different positivity rates, as is the case in Newark.
“The same thing would go for our areas outside of Newark,” Campbell said at the meeting. “That burden looks very different. Because we’re in Essex County, and because of the city and people’s inability to social distance and have that space, you’re going to see our county rate a little bit higher. That may worry people, but we really have to be more specific.”
The panel spent time at the meeting discussing vaccines; there is currently a shortage of vaccines available for New Jersey residents to receive. The state is in phase 1b of the vaccine rollout, which allows health care personnel, long-term care residents and staff, first responders, and individuals at high risk for COVID-19 to receive the vaccine. Teachers and school staff are not yet eligible. Cascone asked if coronavirus vaccines would need to be a yearly necessity in the future.
“It’s one of the questions we don’t completely know the answer to,” Campbell said. “The data that we have from the trials is short term in terms of adverse reactions, so it’s going to take some time for us to know how long immunity is going to last.”
The meeting went on for longer than four hours; many questions regarded the logistics for teachers who run the risk of being exposed to the virus and then have to quarantine for two weeks.
“What I’ve seen from towns in neighboring areas that have been open is that yes, staffing can be a challenge, but it is not one that has frequently resulted in the necessity that we shut down the school because of lack of staff,” Cascone said, also pointing out the district can reverse course from the plan if necessary.