LYNNFIELD — It was a night of firsts and lasts for the Lynnfield School Committee at its first meeting of the new school year.
For Kristen Vogel, it was her first official meeting as Lynnfield’s superintendent since taking the baton from predecessor Jane Tremblay July 1.
It was also the last committee meeting to be conducted remotely via Zoom.
“Our goal is for this to be our final remote meeting, hopefully forever, but we will be moving to in-person meetings starting July 30, which will bring back public participation,” chairman Jamie Hayman said. “There are a lot of parents (and) community members who are concerned and have thoughts about how the schools are going to be reopening.”
For most people, starting a new job can be a stressful experience in normal conditions. But starting one as a superintendent in a brand new district in the middle of a pandemic, no doubt, is a horse of a different color.
Not for Vogel.
“Probably not a single superintendent is sleeping a full night as this is the most challenging experience any of us have had, but believe it or not, it’s been wonderful,” Vogel said. “I can’t believe how quickly my day goes, which is a really good thing in that I am constantly meeting new people, talking on the phone, emailing, learning about the community, learning about the schools and meeting with my leadership team,” she said. “Every day is a new opportunity for learning more information.”
Schools had been shut down for about two weeks when the Swampscott resident was hired. Two weeks later, the state announced schools were closed for the rest of the year.
Like most people, Vogel had no idea what was to come next.
“I didn’t anticipate that we would be at this point trying to plan for reentry, I thought we’d just go back to school normally,” she said. “I think it was in May that I came to the conclusion that things were not going to look the same and this was going to be our work for the summer.”
With the July 31 deadline for districts to submit three-pronged reopening plans to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) just around the corner, Vogel is working with a new Reentry Task Force to develop the plans.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Vogel updated the committee on the progress of the reentry plans.
“Since the end of June, we have been working on three feasible reentry plans, fulltime, hybrid and remote. We are keeping our eye on what we value as being important for reentry as we look at the data,” she said.
Vogel said separate surveys were sent to parents and staff. As of Monday’s due date, 1,100 parents responded, while more than 200 staff members responded.
“Essentially every single family responded,” Vogel said. “The purpose of both surveys was to assess the risk that families (and staff) are willing to take,” adding that the results of both surveys will be shared at Thursday’s Reentry Task Force meeting.
The parents’ survey sought input regarding social distancing, masks, classroom spacing, hand hygiene, building cleanliness, access to transportation and buses and access to devices and technology. The survey also offered parents a chance to rank their preferences on the types of learning to be offered. Choices ranged from full days, some at home and some at school, half-day split sessions and alternating weeks at home and at school.
“The issue is the number of students we can put safely in a classroom,” said Vogel. “We have no problems with 10 kindergarten classrooms as those rooms are huge, but it’s a different situation at the high school. Regardless, our goal is to get kids back in the building as safely as possible. Our priority remains the safety and well-being of our school community.”
