The BOE meeting began with a vote to elect Board Leadership Positions. Tony Pesco was re-elected as Chair of the Board and Melissa Walker was re-elected as Vice Chair. Sharon Rodko was voted teacher of the year. The High School student BOE representatives reported that the student body came together to create a daily schedule that they hoped would improve their social, emotional and academic lives as we deal with Covid-19. They were able to work with the administration to implement this schedule and reported that the student body is benefiting from the changes and they are appreciative of the administration’s hard work and dedication to the students’ needs during this time.
The annual enrollment update detailed that district enrollment is down by about 20 students this year and the new students coming in are increasingly diverse. The 10-year projection shows that there will most likely be a decline in enrollment for HES and WIS, followed by a rebound, leading to an overall increase in enrollment over the next 10 years. This topic will be discussed in more detail at another time.
The remainder of the meeting was dedicated to the impact of Covid-19. Dr. McKersie said that the recent spread of cases within in the schools has led to the need to rethink the current learning models. Weston is committed to giving the elementary students as much time in-person as possible, but the large upswing of positive cases in our community has also lead to staffing issues when there are not enough teachers and staff to cover the kidsand class coverage. With as many as 150 students currently quarantining, Dr. McKersie said that hybrid is the best shot we have at giving the students the option for any in-person learning.
Dr. McKersie emphasized that the staff are highly stressed. Everyday the administration is moving teachers around so that there is coverage, and also coming up with creative strategies to keep classes going. When teachers quarantine they still have to be in close contact with substitutes. The subs need access to all of their technology and need to be caught up to speed not only on academics, but the specifics (including technology) of distance learning. The ensuing technical difficulties lead to very stressed teachers, subs and students. Other issues faced are the lack of lap tops for the subs and subs who don’t yet know how to use the technology. If they want to keep the lower schools in-person as much as possible, there will be a lot of stress and the need for patience. The administration is trying to keep the kids in school despite the technology problems. Subs are given training, but the real learning takes place once they are live in the classroom.
BOE asked the administration to give families more notice before changes in plans (ie. in-person to hybrid) since families may need to change their work schedules, childcare, etc. The stress of both families and staff were apparent when this topic was brought up, leading to Dr. McKersie and school principals to say that most times they can’t give more than 24 hours notice, and for families to please realize that this comes with the territory when the schools are trying so hard to keep both the kids and staff safe and learning in-person. Several BOE members spoke of the need for families to be ready, if possible, for sudden changes in schedules.
One last topic was families going away for long weekends versus families who need to go away for longer periods of time. It is ok to switch VDL if a family is leaving for an extended period of time, but asking to change your learning plan for a long weekend is not ok. Not only is it difficult for the school to arrange, it is not safe as many people do not quarantine after those shorter times away.
The meeting ended with the sentiment that we, as a community, are all going through a difficult time and need to continue to support each other and have patience.
Julie Ruby
BOE Rep
