Port Washington Schools Pivot On Reopening; Parents 'Furious'

PORT WASHINGTON, NY — The Port Washington Union Free School District changed its school reopening plan for the fall this week ahead of the start of the school year, joining numerous other schools across the country that have made last-minute changes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

At its second town hall meeting on reopening in the fall Thursday evening, the district announced that it will pivot from its original plan to allow elementary students to return to in-person learning five days a week while still offering a fully virtual option for families who elect to remain remote. Under the new hybrid plan, the district said, elementary students may return to school two days out of the week and receive online virtual instruction the other three days.

“This decision did not come easily,” Superintendent of Schools Michael Hynes said during Thursday’s meeting. In explaining the decision, Hynes said that after meeting with school district teachers and staff, the concerns he heard about bringing elementary students back full-time warranted a shift in the district’s plans for its elementary schools.

Particularly, Hynes said, in trying to “operationalize” elements of the district’s initial "all in" plan, including maintaining social distancing in hallways, classrooms and at student drop-off and departure, it became clear that “some things won’t work out.” Additional concerns focused on the instructional elements of the original "all in" plan.

“The concerns that were brought to my attention I believe warranted us to pivot and make a hybrid plan that really focuses on what’s best for kids,” Hynes said. “That has to be our guiding light as we move forward.”

The shift from an in-person model to a hybrid one comes just under three weeks before the intended first day of school Sept. 8, prompting outrage from many parents who had planned to send their children to school five days a week.

More than 800 people signed an online petition demanding the district restore the five-day in-person option for elementary schools.

“Port Washington elementary school students NEED a full 5-day/week in-school option,” the petition said. “While we all appreciate the amount of time that goes into these considerations, the results are simply unacceptable. The decision to remove this option is an irresponsible failure of leadership by the Port Washington School District and Board of Education.”

Nancy Aknin, a Port Washington resident with a son entering kindergarten told Patch that she was “furious” about the shift, namely because the community spread of the coronavirus remained under 1 percent in the week-and-a-half since the district first announced that students could return to school full-time. Aknin had planned to send her son to in-person classes five days a week.

“Initially, the idea was things are going to change depending on community spread and the dangers; everything is fluid. But our numbers have remained very, very low,” she said. So the switch to the hybrid plan “doesn't seem to be based on anything that makes sense. There's no explanation.”

The infection rate in Nassau County is currently at 0.95, meaning the virus is spreading in a slow and controlled manner, according to Covid Act Now. Port Washington has seen a total of roughly 272 positive cases.

Aknin added that if the obstacle to opening five days a week was due to "logistics, then that needs to be fleshed out, and maybe parents would be willing to work with the school district to help.”

In the meantime, Aknin expressed concerns that the hybrid plan would only cause more issues related to health and safety, learning and feasibility for working parents.

Both Aknin and her husband work full-time, with Aknin based at home. The prospect of working full-time while also supervising her 5-year-old for three days as he goes to school on his school-issued iPad is "untenable."

"It's simply not something that can be done," Aknin said.

This concern was echoed by numerous parents who left comments in Port Washington Facebook groups in light of the pivot and on the petition to restore five-day in-person instruction.

“How are working parents/single parents supposed to educate a 5 year old? A 6 year old?” one parent wrote in a Thursday comment on a post in Port Washington School Community, a Facebook group. “With older learners hybrid might be possible, but how are we supposed to continue to work and teach a child how to read and add and be a human while still paying bills and putting food on the table?”

During Thursday’s town hall, Hynes said that as a working parent, he understood the impact and challenge of finding childcare for elementary students’ virtual learning days, and that this was considered while making the decision to shift to a hybrid model.

Parents, including Aknin, also said that a hybrid model would be more dangerous to the health and safety of students and staff than a fully in-person schedule.

For Aknin, sending her son to school five days a week would have minimized his potential exposure to the coronavirus, she said. Now, she needs to send him to childcare three days a week, thereby increasing his "vectors" and chances for exposure. While her son’s social interactions could have been limited to home and school, she worries he will be exposed to interactions at home, school, daycare, parent-established social pods and possibly more.

"So we’ve essentially defeated the safety argument of going hybrid,” Aknin said.

In a Thursday comment left in the Port Washington School Community Facebook group, another parent said she was "beyond disappointed" in the school district.

"Hybrid just increases exposures and decreases learning," she concluded.

Many parents also expressed concerns about the learning experiences their children will receive with just three days of remote learning.

“I know that the instructional and educational situation will be terrible. You cannot teach a 5-year-old or a 6-year-old or a 7-year-old on an iPad virtually,” Aknin told Patch, citing statements from bodies including the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics that described the negative impact of school closures on younger children especially.

“They don’t learn any other way. So it’s a huge disservice to our children, it's a huge disservice to our community,” she said.

A Port Washington resident who signed the petition wrote in his accompanying comment that he was signing because there was nearly universal agreement that remote learning was, in his words, "absolute trash at the elementary level back in March."

"And it's still going to be trash,” he said. “My FOUR-year-old incoming kindergartner isn't going to learn and grow from busywork on a tablet.”

The Port Washington Teachers Association said in a statement Friday that it opposed the live-streaming model the district plans to implement, saying broadcasting to children "eliminates most of the necessary components of effective teaching.”

In its list of reasons why it opposes the livestreaming method, the group said that while teachers will interact with students in the classroom, “the students at home truly just watch.” The association added that “the social emotional learning needs of children can not be met through a one way video screen as proposed in this plan.”

“Once again, the District is committing to an idea that has not been vetted. It offers zero educational value and costs over $100K,” the association said. “In a meeting this week, the District admitted that teachers will not be supervising or reacting to the students’ questions or concerns of those who are watching online. But, they want to impose this plan anyway.”

Hynes did not respond to a request for comment from Patch on the association’s statement.

The district’s decision-making process also struck some community members as lacking in parent involvement and inconsiderate of family preferences.

On Thursday evening’s town hall, one Port Washington resident wrote in a Facebook comment that no one was able to ask questions or discuss the plans.

"No one felt heard, and we all still have a million questions," she said. "That’s how our kids are going to feel while they sit in our living rooms, staring sadly at the screen.”

Aknin said that while she understood why community discussion was not allowed during the town hall, which hundreds of people were tuned into, the district still “should have gotten a better read on what the community wants” through in-depth surveys on what kinds of reopening plans families would prefer.

“There's not a lot of transparency,” she said, adding that if the district knew about enough families who wanted to spend the fall fully remote, a hybrid model would not even be necessary because fewer students would be at school.

The district previously conducted a survey, the results of which were published Aug. 12, to Port Washington parents asking about their fall preferences.

Hynes acknowledged parents’ previously expressed concerns at Thursday’s town hall meeting and said that over the course of the next month, the district “will continually reassess this plan” to determine if it would be safe to bring elementary students back full-time.

“This will evolve and mature over time,” he said. But for now, the hybrid model was chosen in the context of “where we are right now, as far as making sure everyone’s safe.”