Citing Teacher Shortage, Sparta Schools Go Virtual To Start Year

SPARTA, NJ - The Sparts School District will start the school year utilizing distance learning after a flurry of staff leave and accommodation requests, according to Acting Superintendent Patrick McQueeney.

The district is set to open Sept. 8 after a week of teach in-services.

"Due to our inability to appropriately and safely supervise our students caused by the high number of staff leave and accommodations requests, our in-person instruction will only be offered to students in special programs beginning Sept. 8 through Oct. 30," he said in a statement. "All other students will be moved to virtual instruction during that time period.

McQueeny said that if the district can safely supervise students to ensure the compliance with all required health and safety guidelines by Oct. 30, they will begin the process of transitioning students back to in-person instruction on Monday, Nov. 2.

But Sparta Education Association President Susan J Sawey said that her members need more questioned answered before that hope becomes a reality.

"The Sparta Education Association has worked in good faith with the Sparta Board of Education to create a plan that ensured the safe return to school for both our students and our staff in the middle of an unprecedented national pandemic that currently seems to have no end in sight," she said in a statement. "The position of the SEA has been from the very beginning that until the district was able to provide a working environment that ensured the safety of our staff and students, we should not return to in-person instruction until those conditions could be met."

Sawey said that they have outstanding questions that need to be answered by the administration including:

A request for maintenance logs and inspection reports of the HVAC systems in order to ensure that an independent agency could verify the air quality and operation of those systems.

"The Sparta Education Association consists of teachers, nurses, child study team members, secretaries, parapfofessionals, and other related services who have no greater desire than to return to school in September, safely," she said.

Sawey said that members who made requests for medical accommodations did so under the advice of their personal physicians and to the accommodations afforded to them under the ADA. The requests were made due to underlying medical conditions that may put their personal health or the health of a family member in danger, she noted.

"No one should ever have to put their lives at risk to return to work," Sawey said.

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