Rochester School Board pushes back timelines for return to in-person learning

The Rochester School Board approved a full return to the classroom for elementary and secondary students Tuesday evening; however, the final plans approved were more conservative than the proposals originally introduced by district administration.

In a 6-1 vote, the board voted to move all primary students back to a full in-person learning model “no earlier” than March 1. The plan is a slight evolution of the model adopted in January, which gradually moved elementary kids out of full-time distance learning and into a hybrid model. 

Under the original plan, as proposed by district administration, pre-kindergartners through second graders would have returned to full in-person learning on February 16, with third through fifth graders following on March 1. The plan that was approved Tuesday, however, would send all students back at the same time — which the district would need special approval from the Minnesota Department of Education to do.

Board members said they wanted to provide “more consistency” to students and parents, in addition to giving preK-2 teachers more time to prepare their classrooms — plus give them the chance to receive a vaccine dose.

“Instead of having some kids come back in just a couple weeks, if we could give the schools about four more weeks, possibly, hopefully, more of our teachers could get vaccinated by that time,” said Board Chair Jean Marvin.

Board Member Don Barlow was the only person to vote against the amendment and the final resolution, suggesting that the last-second changes were an affront to the 1,000-plus people watching the district live-stream who had no idea changes were coming.

“We have a more engaged community than ever before, and I think the community just wants to know that we know what we’re doing,” said Barlow. “We have to be decisive in what we do, and I came here to vote on the resolution as written.” 

Immediately after the elementary decision, the School Board made changes to the proposed secondary learning model, scrapping the original plan to move to a hybrid model on February 23. Instead, Rochester’s secondary students will skip hybrid learning entirely — but will have to wait until the spring to get back into the classroom. 

In a unanimous vote, the board approved a plan brought forward by Board Member Cathy Nathan to move secondary students to full in-person learning beginning on April 5 — the first day of school after spring break and the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Nathan said her rationale to ditch the original plan came from her conversations with district staff — underscored by a teacher survey that painted hybrid learning in a worse light than any other model, with 73 percent of secondary instructors opposing the implementation of a hybrid model.

“We received a number of very detailed emails from staff who described how they felt the hybrid model would not work, and said if they were allowed to plan for an in-person model, beginning at a natural break, they could make it work much more effectively and make it a positive experience for students,” said Nathan.

Marvin added she had heard from several students who came out against moving into a hybrid model, saying that a transition to an eight-period day — as opposed to the current three-period “block schedule” in distance learning — would make the hybrid option worse than the status quo. Teachers are in the same boat, with much larger student bodies to plan for.

“The hybrid model isn’t popular among most, but at a high school or middle school — where each staff member has nearly 150 students — it just becomes impossible, and not academically sound,” said Marvin.

The board will check the Covid-19 situation in their March 16 meeting before finalizing their plans to implement the secondary model. Until then, middle and high schoolers will remain in the distance learning model — although some small group learning activities will be allowed at school buildings.

The board’s deliberations on both learning models were preceded by a presentation from Olmsted County Public Health Director Graham Briggs, who brought up recent CDC studies that found in-person learning — with the proper precautions — haven’t increased community transmission of Covid-19. 

Still, Briggs said Covid-19 levels in schools — specifically among staff — would be a reflection of the virus’s prevalence in the community. If the situation continues to improve in the community, it’s likely that in-person learning could be successful — but the reverse is also true.

“The amount of transmission in the community spills into schools,” said Briggs. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that kids are transmitting, but we do see younger children that get exposed and get sick, we see younger adolescents get sick, and even more so with staff. The more activity we see in the community, the more likely it is for someone to accidentally walk into a school with Covid and expose others.”

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.