Toms River Schools Weighing Remote Start For 2020-2021

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Regional Board of Education will be accepting parental comment on its plans for the 2020-2021 school year in a continuation of its curriculum committee meeting at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

The meeting was carried to Thursday evening after an emotional discussion Wednesday night about the issues facing the district as it weighs how it will begin the fall while adhering to state mandates amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the issues facing the district are staffing, acquiring enough protective equipment, from hand sanitizer to masks to plexisglass dividers, to the ability to ensure children follow the rules to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which has sickened nearly 186,000 in New Jersey since the first case was identified March 4.

Administrators around New Jersey are required to certify that they can meet state mandates for safely reopening schools. Days after all districts were required to submit their plans, the state Department of Education distributed a form on Tuesday requiring districts to certify that they were doing everything possible to m eet the state's ever-changing minimum standards so they could open school buildings in the fall.

And despite what officials said were hundreds of hours sunk into building a hybrid model with two days per week of partial in-person instruction, schools superintendent David Healy said he could not certify that the district could meet all of the items on the state's "Attestment" list.

The attestment form — which school district attorney Stephen Leone said the district should not sign — isn't the only challenge facing the district. Staffing levels and concerns also made it likely the district would have a difficult time meeting lofty district goals.

Though the decision ultimately is up to Healy, the superintendent, he said he wanted board input to make the best decision.

More than 25 other districts are considering or have chosen remote learning to start the school year.

"We all want to go back to our normal lives and our normal schools," Healy said. "We understand the childcare issues, the (issues of) single parent families, the (issues of) two working parents ... we're not sugarcoating the reality of what we're facing," Healy said.

You can watch the committee meetings here.

The district will post a link for the meeitngs' continuation on Thursday.

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