SOUTHAMPTON — Students at William E. Norris School can expect to have a mix of remote and in-person classes when they return to school after the School Committee voted to adopt a hybrid model for the start of the coming semester.
“I think the hybrid plan honors the needs of students,” said School Committee member Austin Rogers, following the vote. “It’s our hope that we are able to balance all concerns.”
The goal of the plan is to have students return to full, in-person learning after four weeks of the school year. The first day of school in Southampton is not yet known.
“The goal is four weeks,” said School Committee Chairman Jon Lumbra. “It may end up taking eight weeks to get there.”
Thursday’s joint meeting consisted of school committees for Southampton, Westhampton, Chesterfield-Goshen and Williamsburg as well as the Hampshire Regional School Committee. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the reopening of schools in the Hampshire Regional School District amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the plan for the Norris School adopted Thursday, students will be divided into two groups. The first will attend the Norris School Monday and Tuesday while the second group will attend Thursday and Friday. Both groups of students will do remote learning the other three days they are not at school, although students in the “high needs” category will attend the Norris school four days a week.
The plan also includes instructions that the school administration come up with a COVID-19 monitoring plan, which will include a list of events would cause a pause or reversal of the reopening plan.
Parents can choose to opt out of the plan and have their children educated fully remotely from day one.
The vote for the plan was 3-1, with Lumbra, Austin and Allison Radon voting for the plan, and Greg Bennett voting against.
Bennett voted against the plan after an amendment he put forward specifying that students’ desks be kept at least 6 feet apart was not taken up.
“Six feet is the official recommendation from the CDC,” said Bennett at the meeting. “I don’t want to put our kids into a suboptimal, less than ideal situation where they could transmit this if they do manage to get a case in the school.”
However, Rogers said at the meeting that he didn’t think the school could accommodate such a distancing.
“It’s more of a space issue than an issue with disagreeing with the CDC guidelines,” Rogers said Friday.
A later motion that did pass puts in place the 6-foot distancing during the hybrid period.
Another motion passed by the School Committee Thursday establishes that bus service shall only be available to students living outside of a two-mile radius of the school. Busing will still be available to students within this radius if their Individual Education Plans specify the need for transportation. Busing will not be available to school choice students.
On Friday, Rogers said this requirement was the result of state regulations limiting the number of students on buses.
“It’s a matter of bus capacity — it’s not a matter of the length of the route,” he said.
Of the five committees at the joint meeting, only Southampton voted on a plan Thursday night.
“Knowing that earlier is better for families than knowing it later,” said Rogers.
The meeting, which was conducted virtually over the videoconferencing application Zoom, was attended by more than 200 people. A variety of views on reopening were aired in the public comment period, with a number of the speakers speaking favorably of a hybrid model.
The meeting was also subjected to the practice of “Zoom bombing.” Zoom bombing involves people disrupting videoconferencing meetings for entertainment purposes, and none of the disruptions appeared to be related to the meeting itself or its subject matter.
Thursday’s meeting saw profane messages, including racial slurs, show up in the chat. Disruptive audio, as well as offensive avatars were also seen in the course of the meeting, and the chat eventually had to be disabled.
“It was unfortunate,” said Lumbra, of the Zoom bombing.
Rogers also expressed his regret at the incident, and that possibly more people would have been able to speak if the disruption hadn’t occurred.
Bera Dunau can be reached at bdunau@gazettenet.com.