Back to School (Again): Q & A Transcript

Photo from: Hannah Schroeder l Keene Sentinel

By  Evan Edmonds

This content has been edited for length and clarity.

May 3rd marked the state-mandated return to full in-person operations for New Hampshire schools. Granite state schools had mixed reactions to the reopening requirements with several school districts, such as Manchester, submitting waivers to delay the process. Joining The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda is Dr. John Goldhardt, superintendent of the Manchester school district, and Jack Rooney, education reporter for the Keene Sentinel.

Melanie Plenda: I know Manchester is one of the school districts to have their reopening extended to May 3rd. Can you explain why this was, and what some of the reopening concerns were in Manchester?

Dr. John Goldhardt: The main reason was because we had federal designations for many of our employees due to ADA requirements. We would have had so many substitutes that we could not have filled all of those. The governor and the commissioner agreed and allowed our waiver to be approved. It wasn't because we didn't want to open, it was because we couldn't. After we had all of our teachers vaccinated past that 14 day mark, after their second shot, we were more than happy to begin that process. 

Melanie Plenda: What were your thoughts about the governor deciding to reopen schools and the return to school mandates, were those fair?

Dr. John Goldhardt: It was a surprise because we had not heard anything about it until the news conference. Then last summer, when we got the information about how to reopen schools, it was pretty vague and most of it was site-based. This announcement was more state-based so it was a little different from what we had been used to, however we've wanted our students back in school.

Melanie Plenda: This has been stressful on teachers, on parents, and on students. Can you talk to me a little bit about what kinds of things you have to take into consideration? When it comes to kids getting back into the classroom, what are you watching for, and how are you addressing and preparing to handle any issues that come up?

Dr. John Goldhardt: We still have our mitigation factors for safety in place: we're still requiring masks in our buildings; we're still doing temperature checks of our students when they come into our building; we're still not allowing our drinking fountains to be on; we're still having our students distanced while they're eating; we're encouraging our students to eat outside if possible, because that's better; and we're also encouraging windows to be open because we know that’s safer. We still have to have things that weren't as normal as we've had before, and we're now at three feet apart in classrooms instead of six feet. So we're not quite normal, but we're getting closer.

Melanie Plenda: Well, Dr. John Goldhardt of the Manchester school district, thank you so much for being here today. Joining us now is Jack Rooney, education reporter for the Keene Sentinel. Thanks so much for being here with us today, it's nice to see you again. Can you explain a little bit as to why there was this situation with different schools within the same district often doing different things when it comes to in-person versus remote learning?

Jack Rooney: This really goes back to last summer when schools were making their own plans for reopening during the pandemic. The state really gave local districts a lot of leeway with what they would be offering to begin the year. There was that hybrid model which by and large divided students up into two groups and had them alternate days of in-person classes, and that was really the most popular choice throughout the Monadnock region. That's what Keene and Monadnock did for all of its schools to begin with. Keene switched to fully remote classes over the holiday season when there was a spike in COVID-19 cases within the surrounding area and Monadnock continued with a hybrid model throughout the entire year, up until Monday. At the beginning of April, Governor Sununu announced his order that all K through 12 public schools returned to full in-person classes starting April 19th, which is when schools throughout the state began preparing for that return.

Melanie Plenda: Do you have a sense of why SAU 29 received approval from the state to delay reopening while some other school districts didn't get that?

Jack Rooney: In governor Sununu’s executive order it did allow for districts to request a waiver from the mandate that they returned to full in-person classes on the 19th, and the one recurring theme within the guidance that the state education department released was that districts requesting a waiver had to prove extenuating circumstances that affected the health and safety of staff and students to delay reopening. I believe about a half a dozen districts in the state, including Keene and Manchester, got a waiver to push off full reopening. I'm not exactly sure the specific reasoning that the state gave for accepting or denying those waivers, but I do know that the main concerns within the Keene school district and within SAU 29 specifically were kind of two fold.

One was giving the districts and the schools time to rearrange everything physically to accommodate basically twice as many students as they've had in the buildings all year, and to do so in a way that's still maintaining some physical distancing. Most schools have adopted the state and the CDC’s updated guidance of three feet of physical distance in school being sufficient provided that other measures like masking remain in place. The other aspect was vaccinations for staff members. Here in the Monadnock region, educators started receiving the vaccine in early March. As a result they would not be considered fully vaccinated, as in the 14 days after the second dose, until late April or this first week of May. By pushing off the full reopening to this week, May 3rd, it gives them a chance to have all of the staff who elected to receive a COVID 19 vaccine be considered fully vaccinated.

Melanie Plenda: How are students and teachers reacting to the reopening? How are they feeling about safety?

Jack Rooney: I was in two schools on Monday; I started the day at Keene high school and talked to a handful of students and staff on their way into the building and as they were getting started, and it was a lot of excitement with a little bit of trepidation. A lot of the students I talked to were excited to see all of their friends again, because being split into two groups, there’s a lot of people they haven't seen in school all year. Some of the students I did talk to were a little nervous about having that many more people in school - during the hybrid model, Keene high school had probably about 600 students in school on any given day, and on Monday for the first time all year that went up to about 1200 students. There was some sense of concern about the sheer volume of people, but for everyone I talked to - students and staff alike - those concerns were really by and large alleviated by the fact that masks are still required in the building. From the staff perspective they have been able to begin receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

A little bit later in the morning on Monday, I was at Mount Caesar elementary school in Swanzey where they have about 240 students in pre-K through second grade. There was a lot of excitement from the kids; again, they were all wearing masks. That's still a requirement in school, even out on the playground. They were just excited to have all of their friends back. The staff members I talked to at Mount Caesar were equally as excited. Again, there were some concerns there with the higher volume of people in school, but with the health and safety measures that the schools have in place, they feel the schools have done a good job throughout the year of limiting COVID-19 transmission within the schools.

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