Boston schools parents, teachers brace for new normal in start to school year

Boston Public Schools students and teachers will crack open their computers for the first day of school Monday — completely remote — as some last-minute repairs, schedules and equipment have yet to fall into place.

“Things feel last minute. On the parent side, it feels last minute and then when you actually talk to someone in your child’s school building, it’s the same sense,” said Latoya Gayle, parent of BPS kindergartner.

“I have no idea of curriculum, I have no idea of the schedule still. It’s Friday. He’s supposed to log on on Monday and I don’t have the schedule yet,” said Gayle.

Gayle also has two children in charter schools and wanted to switch one over to BPS this year but chose not to, citing lack of communication from the district.

As crunch time before the first day intensifies, 11,000 BPS families still have yet to fill out a survey selecting their learning model and some windows still need repairs, according to BPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius, though she added that all rooms have at least one working window.

Boston Teachers Union President Jessica Tang said, “That air ventilation issue and the safety air quality concerns are certainly still very important and especially, you know, right now we can keep the windows open. But what about in the wintertime?”

Tang said in addition to ventilation issues, BPS staff are also concerned about PPE and being able to social distance from students, especially those that need hands-on services like physical therapy.

Cassellius said, “Some teachers early on, there was a lack of trust that we weren’t getting it done.”

But said teachers have now had the chance to do walkthroughs, “Now that they’re able to see it themselves, I think that is different than some of the comments that may have been made last week or the week before.”

Cassellius said school buildings are stocked with PPE and three months of cleaning supplies, “The buildings are ready. Certainly we are going above and beyond.”

She added, “This is going to be an ongoing process and readiness to ensure our community is healthy and safe and as the superintendent I’ve made my commitment to the team that we are going to do that.”

Cassellius said the first thing on her mind is keeping a low community COVID transmission rate to make for a healthy and safe year, followed by receiving an order of 20,000 Chromebooks that have been delayed due to shipping issues.

“We want to make sure every single child has their own computer,” said Cassellius.

Travis Marshall, the parent of two BPS students said he is bracing for technical difficulties, but overall is looking forward to Monday.

“I just cannot say enough about all the work that has been done at the school level by school leaders and teachers and all the staff really,” said Marshall.

Lisa Levin, a teacher at Mario Umana Academy in East Boston spent time on Friday delivering school supplies to some of her students.

“It’s really, really stressful, I mean as teacher we always, always want what’s best for our kids,” said Levin.

She added, “There are teachers who are doing so many creative, wonderful things.”

Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/35QEnMa