First students back at Prescott schools, and it’s going great

“I really want to thank my special education staff for the work they’ve done over the last few weeks,” Pupil Services Director Mark Inouye said in his good news update at the August school board meeting for Prescott. “That’s the good news from Student Services.” Other department and school officials also had their own good news reports at the meeting August 20 in the Performing Arts Center, located just off the Prescott High School Commons.

Chief among the good news is that limited student returns have already begun, with the rest of the student body welcomed on campus at the end of the month, potentially in cohorts on account of the high burden rate for COVID-19 in Pierce County. The first official day of school at Prescott is September 1.

“The kids have transitioned really well,” Malone Intermediate Principal Michael Kosmalski shared at the school board meeting August 20 of Cardinal Academy participants. Meanwhile, Malone Elementary Principal Sara Dusek had her own news to share. The elementary had already welcomed back 122 students on site, with five staff members and main classes being offered.

“It’s been pretty amazing,” Dusek said, saying that the young pupils had come, worn their masks, and that there had been no issues. The elementary hallways were once again resounding with little voices.

Meanwhile, Prescott Middle School Principal Kyle Igou reported that student ambassador training was taking place, and that some eighth graders would serve as sounding boards for the incoming sixth graders.

“Good evening,” Igou told the board. “This week has been our student ambassador training.” Sixth graders coming from Malone Intermediate would get a chance to talk with the eighth graders soon and be introduced to what middle school was all about.

“This is the beginning, the real beginning, of their transition to what middle school really is,” Igou said of sixth grade meeting with eighth grade. Meanwhile, Igou had special credit to give to three staff members in particular, alongside the custodians and other staff members praised by more or less every principal.

“I want to thank Deb Tobais, Sharon Wills, and Katy Hillebrand,” Igou said of the middle school administrative and support staff. With the help of these three, Igou said the present couldn’t have been pulled off. The middle school was ready and building schedules for the fall, and would be ready when the first day came September 1. Speaking of which, Superintendent Dr. Rick Spicuzza had a calendar adjustment to make: Friday September 4 needed to be a half day, in order to do a necessary environmental screen after the first week. It wouldn’t affect 4K because they didn’t have full days, but for the higher levels the school day would end at 1 p.m. Spicuzza said that the school district had partnered with the local Y. M. C. A., which could accommodate additional childcare needs for those in need of this on the coming half-day, which was approved. Going further into school opening plans, board member Tanya Holub had a question for administration at the middle and high school.

“You guys mentioned that you were dividing by alphabet,” Holub told Igou and High School Principal Josh Fiege of the AA/BB cohort plan that would divide student instructional days on site. “Are we accounting for students in the same family with different last names?” Students in cohort group AA with names beginning from A-L would attend on site instruction on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, while students in cohort group BB with names beginning from M-Z would attend on-site on Thursdays and Fridays, with Monday as a flex day for cleaning and other needs. Yes, the answer came back of accounting for needs. One of the reasons the district hadn’t divided by grade level or other means was to prevent just such a disjoint scenario, with kids attending on different days and putting added stress on parents already stretched. The middle school would have a seven period day beginning at 8:30 this year, while the high school would have a five period day beginning at 9:00 a.m. The main substantive difference was that sixth graders would need an extra week to learn the ropes on distance learning if the district had to close down early on, Igou said. If that didn’t happen until at least October, things should be fine.

Entering the discussion as it turned to question of hybrid ed at the elementary and intermediate levels, Spicuzza said the district had discussed it at length, but there were risks involved.

“We recognize that most secondary students can be at home unsupervised,” he said of distance learning. This was riskier with the younger grades, who needed more adult oversight. Even so, it was likely at some point that students and staff would be offsite, “all of us,” as the district worked with both Pierce County Public Health at the local level and the State Department of Health website on burden rates,” or level of confirmed COVID-19 infections in the county.

“We believe that having students on site with staff is the most effective way,” Spicuzza said of student learning. Nonetheless, this on-site arrangement was dependent on health data. As it stands the district has three levels of awareness. The first is face-to-face instruction, the second level is a hybrid model with a mix of onsite and distance learning, and the third level is off-site instruction, likely to happen if the burden rate reaches 30 per 100,000 population in Pierce County.

Along with shutdown came the question of Wi-Fi—was it good enough for multiple families to access at once, or did it even exist in places?

The district had purchased 30 internet hotspots for the year, and high needs groups defined as those in “internet deserts” and places that hotspots didn’t work would be on-site for learning, or at any rate not left behind. Board member Vicki Rudolph said that she was appreciative of the time effort expended on the plans, seconding board treasurer Tanya Holub in this. Middle School Principal said that the previous Spring the district had not been at the technology level it needed to be, while high school principal Josh Fiege had some input of his own.

“We now know that the structure or lack of structure that’s consistent with asynchronous learning is probably not good for kids,” Fiege said of the spring routine, although he said this had been the only way to go at that time.

Now with fall starting, the high school and middle school would both make use of Google Classroom along with Jam Board as a virtual white board and application called Loom. A mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning was the plan for the middle and high school, while for Malone Intermediate and Elementary it was somewhat different.

“We will not be using Google Classroom, we will be using Seesaw,” Malone Intermediate Principal Michael Kosmalski said of schools plans for the lower grades. Seesaw was more developmentally appropriate for students, it was shared, as they could video record themselves as opposed to writing something down.

“ I can only imagine how much time you guys put into this,” Holub said of her appreciation of district staff efforts at a smooth start to the school year.