Salem Schools Look To Keep Screentime In Check In Remote Learning

SALEM, MA — As Salem Superintendent of Schools Stephen Zrike said the district is targeting Nov. 9 as the date to bring substantially more students back for in-classroom learning, he acknowledged the screen time challenges of remote learning.

Zrike said during his weekly video conference with parents and guardians that while the district wants to maintain high standards during remote learning, "we don't want our students to dislike school because they are in front of a screen (all day)."

He said parents will be given grace to pull their children off the laptop if they are feeling overwhelmed or burned out with the amount of time they are online.

"We want them to do the work," he said. "But can that be done later on, in the evening?

"We want to balance the academic push, and need to be taught new content, with the fact that this is a huge adjustment and that there is a social and emotional impact of being a remote learner."

Zrike said the school has begun the distribute the recent shipment of 450 Chromebooks it received to priority students and will next distribute them to students who are using personal laptops instead of school-issued ones, which he said is "not ideal."

He said another 150 laptops of the 1,200 the district has on back order since April will arrive shortly.

The goal remains to bring back additional students next month despite a surge in the wrong direction of coronavirus numbers this week that Zrike called "a little bit of a bump up, but not significant."

"It won't be everybody and it won't be every day," he said of the transition to hybrid learning.

Zrike said that the district has worked out a deal with CVS pharmacy to offer flu shots at school locations given the state's mandate that all student must receive the shot this year. He said those will be available at school locations sometime this month.

Zrike added that ventilation issues at most schools are fixed or in the process of being fixed for additional students. Horace Mann School has been cleared for reopening for priority students and staff with issues at the Bentley School expected to be substantially done in about two weeks.

He said the "A" and "B" wings of the high school have more extensive ventilation issues "and still need a lot of work."

"We're doing an assessment right now to figure out what that entails," Zrike said

He said the ventilation work with then turn to maintaining the systems as the weather gets colder.

"As we turn on the heat we want to monitor the ventilation in all of the buildings," he said.

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