MUSD reopening plan addresses learning, safety challenges

Chart shows the schedule for Group A students in the hybrid learning model. Group B students have the opposite schedule.

 
By Doug Spoon, Editor

Menifee Union School District officials on Thursday outlined their finalized school reopening plan, including a hybrid learning format that will send students back into classrooms for about four hours, two days a week.

According to the plan, presented during a special meeting of the MUSD governing board, families will have the choice of whether to enroll students in the hybrid learning plan or remain in full-time distance learning. Parents will receive an email today with details. The choice must be made by responding to the email by 9 p.m. Sunday, said Dr. Kimberly Huesing, assistant superintendent of educational services.

Students who choose to enroll in the hybrid model will be placed in one of two groups, according to their last name. In Group A, which includes last names A-K, students will be on campus Monday and Tuesday (7:40-11:40 a.m. for grades 1-5, 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for middle school). In Group B, which includes last names L-Z, students will be on campus at the same times on Thursday and Friday.

Students will be dismissed to go home for lunch, then will attend one more class period remotely in the afternoon. Wednesdays will be distance learning for everyone. Kindergarten and TK students will also have in-person learning two days a week, but for only 2 ½ hours.

As district officials acknowledged, the success rate of some aspects of this plan won’t be known until students and teachers experience it in real time. For one thing, students will remain with the same teacher(s) they have now. That means that four days a week, teachers will have some of their students sitting front of them in the classroom and the rest watching and hearing the same lesson from home.

In public comments read during the meeting and in others posted on social media, parents complained about MUSD’s hybrid model. Some criticized the district for allowing students on campus only two days a week, mentioning a Murrieta Valley Unified School District plan that allows students on campus four days a week in an AM/PM model.

One parent accused district officials of making decisions that are “teacher-centered rather than student-centered”, implying that the hybrid model was set up to accommodate the wishes of teachers rather than students. In explaining the district’s hybrid model plan – which was established by a task force including teachers, parents, classified employees and administrators – Huesing said the format was chosen in part to ensure that no students would have to be reassigned to a different teacher.

“One of the things the task force members really wanted was to keep all the students with their current teachers,” Huesing said.

Although none of the board members expressed opposition to the plan itself, some had questions about certain elements of it. Xavier Padilla asked about the logistics of teachers trying to teach students in class and remotely at the same time.

“Is the teacher only looking at a computer during this time?” Padilla asked. “I would hope that if teachers decide they need extra tech equipment to make this work, that would be available to them.”

Padilla was assured there would be that option. Huesing also said that lavalier microphones and sound bars have been purchased for each classroom to improve communication between teachers and students watching and listening from home.

Padilla and trustee Morgan Singleton also expressed concerns about COVID-19 safety issues they wanted to make sure would be addressed. Some of these were about the possibility of shared materials and/or surface contact among students and staff.

Padilla, a teacher, said he bought extra scissors for his students so each would have his or her own. In response, Huesing said that in an attempt to minimize surface contact transmission, funds have been made available to teachers to purchase items such as extra scissors and rulers so that each student has one to use at school and another at home.

There was one question administrators couldn’t completely answer regarding middle school, where students on campus would be traveling from one classroom to the next for three periods: With just a five-minute passing period, how will 17 or more desks be disinfected in each room before a new student comes in to sit at it?

In response to the question posed by Padilla, assistant superintendent Marc Bommarito said there wouldn’t be time to disinfect desks during middle school transition periods. He said disinfecting would only take place at the end of each school day.

Bommarito said scientific studies have shown that COVID-19 is primarily airborne. Board President Jackie Johansen added that air purifying systems have been improved and expanded in each classroom.

“When will teachers have an opportunity to refresh, recharge and use the restroom?’ asked Singleton, also a teacher. “And you have only five minutes to clean the room? If safety is our No. 1 priority and we’re not cleaning between classes … Yeah, maybe science is telling us one thing, but by the same token, a teacher’s room is their domain and they want it to be safe for everyone.”

The possibility of shortening instruction time by a few minutes to allow classrooms to be disinfected between middle school periods was briefly discussed.

“To do that, we would have to displace students during cleaning time,” Bommarito said. “They would have to be waiting somewhere, and we would have to find a way to socially distance them during that time.”

“If it was my kid and I know the desk is being used by someone else for 90 minutes before mine, I might decide to stick with online instruction,” Padilla said. "We still have a couple weeks to go. If there is some solution to this, I would hope we would find it.”

Students will be required to wear masks at all times on campus. Bommarito said officials decided against installing plexiglass shields at each desk, saying some studies suggested it actually is counterproductive because the feeling of safety encourages some people to move closer together.

Asked what administrators would do if a student continually removed his or her mask, Bommarito said there would be a “progressive discipline system” which would begin with repeated reminders, escalating if necessary to communication with the parents, followed if necessary by action considered by the administration.

Huesing said that class rosters would be finalized by March 15 and students will be able to access their revised schedules online the week of March 22. Students in grades kindergarten and TK and grade 6 are scheduled to begin in-person instruction the week of March 29 as part of a “soft return” for students who hadn’t previously attended their particular school. The remainder of the students would begin in-class instruction April 12, following spring break.

It was announced at Thursday’s meeting that the district now had a revised Memorandum of Understanding with the Menifee Teachers Association in which teachers agreed to the terms of returning to in-person instruction under the hybrid model.

“Teachers never said they were unwilling to return,” said Shelli Sullivan, MTA president. “Some teachers would prefer to wait until all of us are vaccinated, and some would prefer to return in a traditional rather than a hybrid model. All of us are anxious to meet face to face with kids we’ve only seen on a little screen this year.

“As for me, I am fully vaccinated and ready to do what’s best for kids under our changing directions.”