PEABODY — Really surreal.
Those were the words School Committee member Beverley Griffin Dunne used to describe her feelings about the district’s decision to start work on a plan to return to full-time in-person learning.
“This is the best news we have had in a very long time, but it’s going to take time to do it properly,” said Dunne. “People need to be patient and they need to know that there may be some situations where we can’t have full in-person learning in some schools. It may vary from grade to grade and school to school, depending on space and distancing. Elementary schools with one class and one teacher are different from the middle school students who have four classrooms and four teachers, and the high school is totally different, so people need to know that. At the end of the day, it’s all about making sure everyone is safe.”
The plan, which calls for students to be in school five days a week, could be implemented as early as March 15 for students in pre-K through grade 5 and as early as March 29 for students in grades 6-12.
School Superintendent Dr. Josh Vadala said the district’s goal has always been the safe return of as many students as possible to in-person school settings in order to meet both learning and social and emotional needs of all students. He commended Peabody’s teachers for doing an amazing job supporting their students within the district’s hybrid model.
“There’s no way to fully quantify the immense positive impact being in school has on students’ mental health and learning ability,” Vadala said. “Additionally, in-person learning will more fully enable the district to deliver critical wraparound services that benefit students in need.”
Dunne said the district will need to negotiate with the teachers’ union, the Peabody Federation of Teachers, but feels optimistic.
“We have had a mutually respectful relationship with the union throughout most of this, so I am confident that we will be able to come to an agreement,” she said.
The decision comes on the heels of recent guidance from public health experts, including the Peabody Public Health Department, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the state Department of Public Health.
“They have all been clear that returning to in-person learning is safe when we combine a minimum social distancing standard of at least three feet among students and six feet between students and staff, along with masks and enhanced cleaning measures,” Vadala said. “We will work with our teachers to ensure those standards are met and that we are doing everything we can as a district to keep students and staff safe and healthy.”
Vadala said the next step will be to survey families and staff to determine the number of students intending to return to in-person learning and the number who intend to stay in the remote model in order to determine the impact on staffing and safety.
“Parents have been clear about how they value in-person learning,” said Vadala. “We are also cognizant of the importance of protecting the health of our staff and students, which has been our paramount concern over the last year and will remain so going forward.
“(This week’s) announcement by the state’s Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, Jeffrey Riley, served as an affirmation of our goal to restore in-person learning. Peabody has been a leader since the start of this school year in finding innovative ways to keep students engaged in their learning, and progressing to full-time in-person learning is the natural next phase of that effort.”
Vadala said the plan is the result of a collaborative effort with “all of our stakeholders — teachers, students, staff, families, healthcare providers, and public health experts — to safely resume in-person learning, and we will make every effort to keep them all engaged and informed throughout this process.”
