NORTHAMPTON — With the start of school in the city just five days away, this much is known: Prioritized students — those with individualized education programs, preschool students, English language learners and homeless students and some others — can go into school starting Sept. 21. On Wednesdays, most students will have individualized check-ins with their teacher and/or education support professional. And there will be some fall sports, it was announced recently.
Following negotiations and weeks of questions, on Friday, Superintendent John Provost and Northampton Association of School Employees President Andrea Egitto sent out a joint statement to families answering some questions and summarizing what NASE and the School Committee have agreed to so far “on the issues critical for school opening.”
It continued, “although there are still some points that we are continuing to work out, we do not want them to get in the way of a successful school opening.”
All students will be remote next week, and Thursday and Friday will be half-days, the joint statement released Friday said. As for daily schedules, “details about individual student schedules will be shared between schools/teachers and families,” the memo reads. “At this time, we encourage open communication about individual class and student schedules.”
Every day but Wednesday, teachers will be available for at least 3½ hours of active teaching in real time. “But this does not necessarily mean that every student will be online for this amount of time each day,” the statement said. “Some of the teacher’s 3.5 hours of synchronous time may be devoted to small group instruction.”
But even with clarification on these issues, there was some confusion leading up to the announcement.
Though a public comment period was at the top of the agenda for Thursday evening’s School Committee meeting, it didn’t happen until more than five hours into the Zoom session.
The meeting started at 6:45 p.m., and most of the first five hours and 52 minutes were spent in an executive session — a closed door meeting — to discuss negotiations with the union that represents school employees.
When the meeting started, Mayor David Narkewicz, chair of the committee, said that the group would be moving into executive session to discuss a “collective barging related-matter that’s very time-sensitive to the beginning of school next week.” The session, originally scheduled last on the agenda, was bumped up to first “because of timing issues,” Narkewicz said.
The change left some people frustrated. Tweeting at the mayor and superintendent, Marissa Hoechstetter, a parent of two fourth graders, wrote, “Going into closed executive session before taking public comment might meet the letter of the law but neglects and ignores the community. You’ve left nearly 100 ppl in a virtual meeting room for two hours and counting.”
“And now at least another hour,” Leigh Graham later commented on Hoechstetter’s tweet as the executive session was still going on. “This is NOT public participation.”
Though Northampton students start remote school in four days, some loose ends remain. No complete memorandum of agreement with the Northampton Association of School Employees, or NASE — the union that represents teachers, education support professionals, clerical workers and others — has been agreed to yet.
“The purpose of the executive session,” Superintendent John Provost told the Gazette on Friday, “was to bring the School Committee — the full School Committee — up to date on negotiations that had been taking place with the (negotiating) subcommittee … and to conduct direct negotiations with NASE.”
The executive session came first, he said, because the agenda included a vote on an agreement with NASE, and the parties had to finish negotiating before that agreement could be ratified by the School Committee. But at the end of the session, the agreement wasn’t finalized, and no vote was taken.
Ward 5 member Dina Levi asked Narkewicz if it was typical to go into executive session before public comment. “In this case, yes, it is,” Narkewicz said.
Then as Narkewicz announced the group was moving to executive session, the meeting was “Zoom bombed,” with loud music playing and the screen flashing dancing animated characters, including Shrek.
Two hours into the executive session, a message popped up on the screen. “The executive session is estimated to go until 10:30. We will broadcast the remainder of the meeting when it resumes and a recording will be available online.” Later, it said, “the executive session is estimated to go until 11:15.” Eventually, it said 12:30 a.m.
After midnight, the public portion of the meeting resumed. “I appreciate the public’s indulgence and the time that we’ve taken to be in executive session, but we had critical matters relative to collective bargaining and critical to the start of school next week,” Narkewicz said.
When public comment finally began, some participants aired their frustrations, citing a lack of information about scheduling and other details related to remote learning.
“It’s impossible to plan our schedules when we have no information,” Hoechstetter said during public comment. “I don’t know how to tell my employer when I need to take off work.” She wanted the district to give more information about what remote learning will actually look like.
On Friday afternoon, she said she got more information from the school about her kids’ schedules at Jackson Street School. “I feel a bit reassured but am still dismayed that we’re getting this information piecemeal just five days before school starts,” she wrote in an email to the Gazette Friday afternoon, noting that her issue is with district leadership and the School Committee, not the teachers.
Schedules for JFK Middle School and the high school are included in the district’s plan, but elementary students have only a sample plan of a day that includes independent work and teacher instruction.
Kristin McCue, a teacher at Jackson Street School who is a member of the NASE negotiating team, expressed similar concerns about scheduling to the School Committee members. “For parents, we do have plans, but we don’t know if we can share those plans because we don’t have an MOA,” she said, referring to the memorandum of agreement. “I have so much respect for all of you … But this is getting to the point where it’s unfair to your educators, to your families, to the children of Northampton, that we are at 12:51 entering into public comment, and we have no answers — no definitive answers.
“I want to share a schedule with the parents that I’ve made, and I want to tell them what the days will looks like,” she continued, “and I have limited ways of doing that. I hope we can solve this before next Wednesday.”
School Committee members voted unanimously on Thursday night to participate in fall athletics. Those sports include soccer, cross country, golf and field hockey, said Lauren McFarland, the district’s athletic director.
Lonnie Kaufman, Ward 6 committee member, was “blown away” by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association modifications. “They went far beyond what I would have thought,” he said.
Several people spoke in support of participating in sports, including high school cross country coach Dave Reinhart. By taking safety precautions, such as social distancing, he said, “I think we can do a good job and give these kids a chance to get their fall sports in. They need it.”
Greta Jochem can be reached gjochem@gazettenet.com.