By Walter Elliott
NEWARK – Everyone who will be going back to the 58 school districts within “Local Talk” territory on or before Sept. 7 for the 2021-22 school year are to take face masks and hand sanitizer along with their books, pencils and calculators.
Students and/or their parents may also want to have proof of full vaccination or the latest COVID-19 test results with them – just in case they are asked.
Some students, teachers, staff, administrators and visitors to the “Local Talk” 12 public, 20 charter and 26 religious or private districts – on one hand – have been using the masks and sanitizers since the spring. That use began when some of the said districts began remote/in-person hybrid learning.
This new school year, however, is starting out with everyone taking full-time in-person instruction. This is the stance Gov. Phil Murphy and Education Commissioner Dr. Angelica Allen-McMillan have decided upon Aug. 6.
Murphy and Allen-McMillan, also on Aug. 6, decreed that everyone on school property are to wear masks full-time. That mandate includes riding on school buses. (Mask-wearing on public transportation is covered at the federal level.)
Murphy (D-Rumson), on Aug. 23, issued his Executive Order No. 253, requiring all Preschool-12th Grade personnel to be fully vaccinated on or by Oct. 18 or be subjected to weekly COVID-19 tests. EO 253 is to cover full and part-time teachers, administrators and staff including substitute teachers, custodians and cafeteria workers.
Students 12-years-old-and older are currently being urged to get vaccinated. Orange, South Orange-Maplewood and some other districts, on their websites, offer vaccinations and/or links to inoculation stations.
It is not known whether the Essex County Vocational-Technical High School system and the other 11 public school districts will follow Hoboken’s weekly testing of students who are eligible for vaccination but have not done so. The Hudson County public district became the first in the state to go beyond the state requirement Aug. 25.
Students 11 or younger remain unvaccinated as of press time. One source had said Aug. 30 that such vaccines may get FDA and Centers for Disease Control emergency approval by the end of 2021.
And all of the above is just to get to the schoolhouse door.
There are social distancing and positive case or infection contingencies that school administrators, boards of education, teacher unions and related personnel have deliberated and mapped out over the summer. Those “Safe Return to School” policies and protocols have been posted on many districts’ websites since Aug. 15 and first passed state muster June 24; several have also held “Town Hall” meetings to outline those procedures and field questions.
The work to subdue and keep COVID infection at bay is above of the normal level of new school year preparations: hiring and/or promoting teachers and principals, changing curriculums, adding new programs, grade levels and/or schools and school construction.
Those who have taken public summer school or are among the charter networks which started the 2021-22 school year as early as Aug. 2 may well have experienced the changes.
The foregoing and the following are an overview. “Local Talk” suggests logging onto your school’s website for the latest COVID-related policies and to call the school for details.
Also keep in mind that the information is dependent on any rise or fall of COVID’s Delta and other variants’ infection rates – making it all subject to change.
Regarding social distancing, some districts may have your temperature read upon entry. Newark Public Schools will also have all incomers to wipe their closed shoes on sanitation pads.
Once inside, people are to keep the CDC-decreed three-foot-spacing minimum. Desks, with or without “sneeze guards” partitions, will be so spaced out. There will be specified entrance and exit ways and doors for circulation. Newark Public Schools hold a two-person maximum in elevators.
Classrooms without integral heating and air conditioning units may have had them retrofitted by when you read this. Those classrooms who are without air circulation may have their windows opened or replaced by other rooms.
Students may remove their masks while using restrooms, during recess and/or while consuming food. Food is to be served in designated cafeterias or classrooms and may be delivered as bag lunches or left by the classroom door.
The South Orange-Maplewood School District, as of Aug. 26, is allowing outdoor lunch periods except for their middle schools. The South Orange and Maplewood middle school principals will have some outdoor space for lunch.
School principals may further stagger lunch and recess periods to maintain social distances.
Regarding breakouts of positive cases and/or infections, they will be handled at the school and district levels.
Murphy, at his Sept. 1 Coronavirus Briefing, said that school decisions on whether to go back to all-remote learning would be left to the districts themselves.
“There would have to be a major outbreak for the districts to go all-remote,” said Murphy Wednesday afternoon. ” I want to say we’ll never go back to a statewide shutdown, like we did in March 2020 but, with this virus, you can never say never. I thank the districts for their cooperation; they’ve had to deal a lot of what was thrown at them.”
Some districts, like Bloomfield Public Schools, will provide remote learning to students who are taken out of in-person learning by COVID.
“We’ll provide synchronous instruction,” said Superintendent Sam Goncalves in his Aug. 24 open letter, “for COVID positive or quarantine students ONLY.”
The “Local Talk” area had two reminders on the importance of COVID suppression Aug. 14 and 26.
Orange Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Gerald Fitzhugh II, on Aug. 14, reported that a student on the Orange High School Auxiliary Band had tested positive. Fitzhugh, in his announcement, added that district and/or Orange Health Department personnel were calling anyone who had been in close contact with that OHS student.
Robert Treat Academy administrators are meanwhile hoping to reopen both of their Newark charter school campuses Tuesday morning. They switched to all-remote learning Aug. 25 after 11 of its staff received positive test results earlier that week.
The virtual learning lasted only two days since RTA’s North Ward and Jackie Robinson campuses went on a scheduled Aug. 30-Sept. 6 “Summer Break.” That break allowed a new lab to re-test all staff; the 11 in question have since received negative results.
