Baldwin-Whitehall: What Instructional Model Is Best For Our Students?

Press release from the Baldwin-Whitehall School District:

Sept. 21, 2020

Dear Members of the Baldwin-Whitehall Educational Community:

The first weeks of the 2020-21 school year within the Baldwin-Whitehall School District have been a time to remember. Months of planning and preparation have come to life as our children have been able to rejoin their teachers in the classroom or remotely to engage in the act of learning.

While these days have not been without their challenges, I feel that we have been able to learn and grow from these early experiences, helping us to refine our efforts to not only keep our schools open but to hopefully increase in-person learning at the earliest opportunity (and do it safely).

These early weeks have also created a narrative in the public as to whether as a school district, we are doing the right thing for our children. Comparisons have been made to other school districts within the region. We know that within our county, there are schools that are also hybrid, but others that are full remote as well as others that have limited 5 day per week in-person learning.

Please know that my absolute goal is to have all children return to school in person full time to the greatest extent possible at the earliest opportunity. Anything less than that places great burden on our children, their parents, and the community.

The District is not alone in the instructional model we have chosen. Hybrid learning (along with the full remote option), while not optimum, does provide a sustainable model for our children at this time. This has been reinforced by newly released data. The Mathematica research group, described as pioneers in research and policy advancements that have transformed the world, have conducted a review of hybrid learning models, expanding on the work they completed this summer for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The key findings of the report are:

• Precautions such as requiring masks and limiting the mixing of students outside of classes can measurably reduce infection spread in schools.
• Hybrid approaches where smaller groups of students wearing masks attend in person part time dramatically reduce the total number of likely infections in a school.
• Infection rates in elementary schools are likely to be lower than in secondary schools employing the same operating strategies.
• Part-time hybrid operation is far more effective at reducing infections than temporarily closing the school building each time an infection is detected.
• In schools that are using a part-time hybrid approach, quarantining close contacts of individuals with detected infections is sufficient to keep the school's infection rate low, while closing entirely reduces the number of days that students can attend with no demonstrable benefit in further reducing infections.
• Schools using a hybrid approach in a community with a moderate infection rate are likely to experience little or no unplanned disruption in the number of days students can come to school.
• Regardless of precautions taken, there is a chance that a school could have an infection on its first day of operation.

The full Mathematica report can be viewed here: https://mathematica.org/our-publications-and-findings/publications/operating-schools-in-a-pandemic-predicted-effects-of-opening-and-quarantining-strategies

Our goal within the Baldwin-Whitehall School District was not only to reopen our doors to students for the beginning of the school year, but to remain open for our children to the greatest extent possible. I know that anything less than full-time in-person learning is disruptive to students, however, to have frequent closures for all students has been proved to be of even greater concern.

As a District, the Board of School Directors, administration and faculty have been committed to providing a safe, high quality program for all children. We know there are areas in which we must improve. But I also know there are areas where we are excelling in working with the students.

Sincerely,

Randal A. Lutz, Ed.D.

Superintendent of Schools

This press release was produced by the Baldwin-Whitehall School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.