The District 186 school board voted 4-3 Monday to send students back under the hybrid model beginning Jan. 12.
The decision capped a three-hour meeting that included impassioned pleas from both sides of the issue and from both board members and public commenters.
President Scott McFarland, vice president Anthony Mares and board members William Ringer and Tiffany Mathis voted for the measure with Judith Johnson, J. Michael Zimmers and Micah Miller voting against it.
McFarland said the board would keep an eye on numbers and that he "wouldn't hesitate" to call a special board meeting if numbers in the future got out of control.
About 44 percent of district students had signed up for the hybrid model, which will put them in classrooms two days a week.
The board broke with a set of four metrics or guidelines it adopted in a vote in the fall. The metrics were recommendations from the Illinois Department of Public Health and were based on Sangamon County numbers.
While the board modified one of metrics earlier, members refused to scrap the metrics wholly.
Under the resolution, all four metrics had to be met for two consecutive weeks, but two of the metrics, while coming down recently, were never met.
Before a final vote was taken, Miller proposed an amendment tying the start date of the hybrid model learning to meeting the four metrics, but that also failed on a 4-3 vote.
Miller earlier in the meeting proposed tabling the vote.
"I've been hearing from teachers who were weighing teaching remote or hybrid based on this guidance that we established," Miller said after the meeting. "Parents were in the same boat when they were enrolling their kids. I had several of them reach out to me saying, you know, I thought we were coming back when it was safe.
"They all feel like we're giving it a shot now. I fundamentally disagree with 'seeing how it goes,' because we can see what's going on. The numbers are going up again. I said in the meeting that other schools are playing with fire and trying to not get burned.
"It's just not responsible."
Springfield Education Association president Aaron Graves said the SEA was "disheartened" by the board's vote. The SEA viewed the dissolution of metrics established by the board "and publicly assured by the board, by both President McFarland and board member Mathis, I would call it subterfuge," Graves added.
"Abandoning the metrics disavows the trust and commitment to employees in the community as well. This type of action is not of educational equity and my fear is that it will prove a tragic error."
Mares, during the meeting asked all of the cabinet level members present during the Zoom meeting, including Superintendent Jennifer Gill, Director of School Support Jason Wind and Director of Human Resources Gina McLaughlin-Schurman if they were all ready for a Jan. 12 return of students.
"These are cabinet members who are sources," Mares said. "Who better to ask than the sources?
"I have every confidence in (Gill) and her cabinet."
Mares said he's been dismayed by the numbers of students who aren't engaged with schoolwork at any level.
"Shame on us if we don't address it now," he said.
Addressing the board before the vote on the amendment, McFarland said new information and procedures have come through since the implementation of the metrics, including testing, isolation rooms at schools and the purchase of more PPE.
"We have moved a lot closer to being able to open up than we were in August, September and October," he said. "Along with that, we have an entire semester's worth of data that tells me that remote learning, while working for some students, does not work for all students.
"Not only do I have to factor in the safety of our students, which I feel I am, I also have to factor in equity and we have a lot of students who remote is not working for."
Gill said there would be questions asked no matter what model was used or when students returned.
"We feel like we're ready to return and we can serve the students who are wanting to return to a hybrid model," Gill said. "If I said I didn't worry about certain aspects of it, I would not be honest. I worry about not having students in class with a teacher completely all day four days a week. I worry about the students were still losing and that maybe won't engage in remote. We worry about the students receiving failing grades.
"All of those things are still in the back of my mind, but this is a step forward."
Sarah Parkinson Rogers, who led a petition drive in the fall to let students return, said many schools in the Springfield area are doing well with in-person learning.
"The entire city of Springfield is busy, out and about, with the exception of District186," Rogers said. "This is just not working."
Also at Monday's board meeting, a moment of silence was held for two long-time District 186 educators who died recently.
Robert Kyes taught at Pleasant Hill Elementary and then at Feitshans High School. Kyes was on the faculty when Southeast High School opened in 1968, where he taught history and coached baseball and basketball until his retirement in 1991.
Known as "King Kyes," Kyes was voted into the Springfield Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.
Beth Cartwright was a teaching assistant, including with the SCOPE program
This story will be updated.
Contact Steven Spearie: 622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.
The Link LonkJanuary 05, 2021 at 10:55AM
https://www.sj-r.com/story/news/2021/01/04/district-186-school-board-voted-send-back-students-under-hybrid-model/4136037001/
District 186 school board, in 4-3 vote, opts to send students back under hybrid model - The State Journal-Register
https://news.google.com/search?q=Send&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
No comments:
Post a Comment