Braintree School Committee Votes To Expand Hybrid Learning Model

BRAINTREE, MA — Three days after not taking action on how many days Braintree Public School elementary-aged students will attend in-person classes for the foreseeable future, the district’s school committee voted Thursday night to shift to four half-days of in-person learning beginning later this month.

In a unanimous vote in the board's second meeting this week, committee members chose the half-day option over two full days, which they provides district students with the most time in the classroom and the most face-time with teachers and gets them away from screens.

The measure was passed three days after Superintendent Frank Hackett told committee members that the four-half days is not feasible based on current staffing levels due to the number of parents who could shift to fully remote learning based on the hardship of managing a day of four half-days of in-person learning.

The transition to the four half-day schedule is slated to begin on Nov. 16 with the plan for all Braintree K-12 to return fully in-person on Jan. 4.

In a recent survey – to which only 53 percent of parents responded – parents indicated that two full days would bring more students into the hybrid model from fully remote. However, if a four-day, half-day model with a morning/afternoon swap became the norm, 59 students would move from hybrid to fully remote, Hackett told committee members on Monday.

Based on the number of students already learning remotely, the addition what would amount to 120 students shifting to fully remote learning will stretch staffing beyond capacity, which would not be sustainable for the district, Hackett said. The most recent survey came shortly after 71 percent of families responded to a survey about the two full-day option. During Thursday's meeting, Hackett outlined the percentage of parents who said they would move their students out of remote learning and into the hybrid model based on more in-person days.

However, his initial concerns were based on the number of families that indicated they would move out of the hybrid model should the district change from its current model.

With the return to full in-person learning scheduled for the first of the year, Hackett told committee members Monday he believes that the two full days allowed for the district to prepare for that return if health guidelines allow. Under the full-day plan, the district would have served lunch to students in socially distanced space, which some parents, including Jennifer Ormsby, a nurse and the PTO president for Hollis Elementary School, expressed concern with Monday night based on the amount of time students would be without masks.

Under the half-day plan, school buildings will be disinfected between the morning and afternoon schedules that are based on two different student cohorts. In a different option of the four-day, half-day plan, the morning and afternoon cohorts would have flipped for the final two days of the four days. Committee members chose the option where students in each cohort will attend all four days at the same time.

As was the case during Monday's meeting, committee members said Thursday that while the four half days could provide challenges to working parents who already cope with balancing work life and meeting their students' educational needs, committee members said moving ahead with the four half-days is what is in the best educational interest of students.

With the model involving the two full days, students would not see their teachers for five straight days, which, committee members like Jen Dolan and Karla Psaros said was not ideal, but outweighed some of the challenges parents face with scheduling.

Like Dolan, committee member Psaros said she prefers the four half-days, which she said provides more continuity of education. She said Monday that while the goal is to get students back into the classroom on a full-time basis, that can’t happen without testing that will cut down on the chances of large groups of students having to quarantine if a positive case of the coronavirus would occur in the classroom.

On Monday, committee member George Kokoros urged the passage of the four-day, half-day model, which he said would get students away from a monitor and back in front of their teacher as the district moves closer to a possible full return for students in January.

“The goal is to get as much education for the students as possible,” Kokoros said Monday.