The Healdsburg Unified School District (HUSD) held a virtual town hall meeting on July 16 to discuss district reopening plans, however, HUSD Superintendent Chris Vanden Heuvel prefaced the discussion by stating that the district will start out the year in a full distance learning environment for all grades.
“Ten days ago we were moving fast and heavy toward a hybrid model, but in the last week things have dramatically changed. We do not feel that we are in a place where we can open school in person on Aug. 19,” Vanden Heuvel said. “We are going to distance learning. It simply isn’t safe right now for us to open for our staff and students.”
In the future the district may consider the move into a hybrid model of learning depending on health and safety conditions, and if there is a transition to the hybrid model, then families will have the option to have their students participate in full-time distance learning.
Vanden Heuvel and HUSD school site principals emphasized that distance learning will look much different this year compared to last. They noted that there will be increased structure, support and accountability, weekly schedules and communication with parents and students, frequent daily minimum face-to-face contact with teachers in an online format, increased academic, social and emotional interventions and more WiFi hotspots.
“Distance learning will be different. It will be more robust. There will be more Zoom and Google Classroom time with teachers, whether it’s in a whole class environment or in a small group, and there will be more structure to it and more accountability,” Vanden Heuvel said.
In terms of stakeholder engagement and gleaning input from parents, students and staff on what they’d like to see for the 2020-21 school year, Vanden Heuvel said the district conducted two parent surveys.
According to those surveys, it was “pretty uniform” in the district and between 17-20% of parents were uncomfortable in sending their kids back to school in any form and would request distance learning. The district will conduct another parent survey in the coming weeks.
If the district does eventually go into a hybrid model where students attend school a few days of week and participate in at-home, online learning for the remainder of the week, HUSD administrators and Vanden Heuvel stressed that stringent health protocols such as mask wearing, and social distancing will be implemented.
One of the district nurses, Kristen Robinson, added that there would be daily, frequent disinfecting of classrooms, encouragement of frequent hand washing and sanitizing, active health screening of students and temperature checks, and staggered lunch and recess time.
Student populations would also be split into stable cohorts and at the junior high and high school level, groups of cohorts would attend certain class periods on certain days in order to maintain cohort integrity. Vanden Heuvel said a plan for reopening would have to be negotiated with the teachers union and approved by the school board before being made official. He added that things are changing quite rapidly and the situation with COVID is fluid and because of this, plans may change.
“We know that these are incredibly stressful times and we are living that stress with you. I have two kids at the high school, one is a senior this year, so I am encountering this not only as an educator, but as a parent,” he said.
Check back on our website for a more detailed article on the HUSD town hall meeting.
