SWAMPSCOTT — In a letter addressed to Superintendent Pamela Angelakis, school committee members and other school officials, a group of Swampscott parents have laid out their issues with the current hybrid model.
The primary concern was centered around a lack of live instruction (either in-person or synchronous online). The letter claims that Swampscott Public Schools (SPS) currently provides “less live instruction than 264 of 271 districts in Massachusetts (97 percent)”, according to information provided on the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website.
This letter comes despite a new Structured Learning Time Plan released by the district Jan. 5 and set to begin Jan. 19 which has the intent of increasing the amount of live instruction in the district.
“The revised Hybrid model to begin on January 19, 2021 provides only a marginal improvement and remains inadequate and inequitable,” the parents’ letter says. “This continued lack of meaningful improvement by SPS, compounded by a lack of thorough and rigorous evidence-based inquiry by the School Committee regarding the district’s reopening planning has eroded the trust we place in our elected representatives and district leadership to competently do their jobs.”
“We’re doing the best we can working with the resources that we have,” said School Committee Member Amy O’Connor, “which includes 100 year old buildings. We have one school that had eight classrooms that had to be closed. A lot of it is just how many people we can fit where. It contributes to there perhaps being a difference between other towns. We’re providing the best that can be expected in a pandemic.”
Parents also voiced concerns about the disparity in live instruction between fully remote
students and hybrid students.
“Fully-Remote students have access to less than 60 percent of the live instruction time as compared to their Hybrid peers,” the letter reads. “This discriminatory treatment is unconscionable and cannot be justified by a lack of specific guidance from DESE on this issue. As stated in our prior communications, we believe that the district should provide equal amounts of live instruction to Fully-Remote and Hybrid students.”
The letter also argues that the school district misrepresented the amount of live instruction students would receive under the Hybrid model claiming that SPS stated that students were receiving 13.3 hours a week of live instruction despite data from DESE’s Preliminary Clearance Report 6 showing that the current model only provided 11 hours of live instruction.
In closing, the letter called upon the school committee to answer a series of questions at an upcoming meeting, ending with the following:
“Will SPS commit to promptly revise its learning models to meaningfully increase the live instruction to elementary school students and provide equal quantities of live instruction to Hybrid and Remote elementary students?”
O’Connor said that she was open to ideas from the community. “We want to hear ideas from the community and if there are ideas that make sense, of course we’ll take them into account.”
“COVID-19 continues to present school districts with complex challenges that require intricate solutions,” said Superintendent Pamela Angelaki, regarding the letter. “My expectation is that the letter will be discussed before, during and after this week’s School Committee meeting and I look forward to the opportunity to address it once we have had the chance to examine in depth the veracity of the contents.”
The school committee will meet again Wednesday.
