A growing chorus of parents across Western New York are saying they do not feel comfortable sending their children back to school – and that they will not.
Parent petitions in some school districts have helped convince officials to offer the option for students to learn entirely remotely this year. In some districts, as many as one-third of students are expected not to return to the classroom.
Adrienne Groman’s children will be among them. She has been steadfast in keeping her family from being exposed to the coronavirus.
She does not go to stores, and family outings have been limited to walks in the park. Because of that, she said, her children have been able to visit their grandparents.
“I don’t understand forcing people to go into some situation they’re not comfortable with,” said Groman, whose daughter is entering kindergarten and son is entering second grade in Orchard Park. “If we put them in school, that means if my parents need help, then I can’t go help them.”
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When the New York State Education Department issued reopening guidelines, it included a provision that schools need to make accommodations for anyone who was not comfortable returning in person.
It’s not clear, though, exactly what that means. Spokesmen for the State Education Department have ignored requests for clarification from The Buffalo News.
Local school officials say they are waiting on the state, too.
“We are waiting for the governor’s office to clarify for districts,” said Darren Brown-Hall, chief of staff in the Buffalo Public Schools.
Buffalo is looking into offering some sort of remote option for students, he added.
Across the state, somewhere around 10% of families are saying they do not plan to send their children back to school in the fall, according to the New York State School Boards Association.
"There's potential that number may get higher as we approach the start of the school year," said Dave Albert, the group's spokesman.
'Do what's right for families'
All schools are required to offer appropriate education accommodations for medically vulnerable students. Several local districts have decided to also offer a fully remote option for students who just are not comfortable returning to classrooms.
“Under the guidelines, we have to provide them with instruction,” said Barker Superintendent Jacob Reimer. “I’m going to do what’s right for our families. Our goal is to be as flexible as possible.”
One in four families in Barker, a Niagara County district with about 700 students, said in a district survey they were unlikely to send their children back to the classroom this fall, he said. Many families have more than one child in school, so that works out to about one in three students.
In some other local districts who have done similar surveys, including Hamburg, Ken-Ton and Williamsville, anywhere from one in six to one in four parents said either that they would not be comfortable sending their children back or that they think instruction should continue fully remotely until a vaccine is developed.
Alden, Amherst, Cheektowaga, Frontier, Iroquois, Maryvale and Williamsville are among the districts in Erie County that have decided to offer a fully remote option. So are Barker, Lewiston-Porter and Niagara Wheatfield in Niagara County.
Staffing could be tricky if schools need enough teachers to instruct students in the classroom as well as those learning online. Clarence and Lewiston-Porter plan to have some teachers dedicated to working with fully remote students. Some other districts have not yet announced how they will tackle staffing two parallel modes of instruction.
Schools say they will need parents to tell them – fairly soon – if they plan to keep their children home, so that they can plan appropriately.
Families who do take that option will need to commit to it from anywhere from 10 weeks to the entire school year, depending on the school.
Waiting for Cuomo
The situation has been evolving so quickly – and guidance from the state has been so vague – that in some cases, school reopening plans posted online at the end of last week are already outdated.
In Eden's plan, the district made clear it would not offer a remote-only option. District officials noted that the state Education Department and Department of Health had told schools to prioritize returning all students to the classroom. So that's what Eden did.
In the past few days, though, it seems increasingly likely that the state may decide to require districts to provide a remote-only option.
The state Education Department sets regulations for schools and does not report to the governor. But since the pandemic began, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has usurped some of their authority through executive orders.
Many school leaders believe it is Cuomo who will determine whether schools have to offer an entirely remote option. And in the past several days, he has repeatedly indicated that he supports parents' right to keep their children home if they don't feel that it's safe to send them back to school.
"Initially, to be honest with you, there was no provision that districts should develop a remote-only option," said Eden Superintendent Jeff Sortisio. "Over time, that’s changed. It seems that the state Education Department and the governor’s office might be more in favor of an a la carte menu for families."
Eden has surveyed families to find out how many students would opt for a remote-only option. Sortisio will look at the results on Wednesday, he said. It's possible some families with several children will want a fully remote option for some of their children and an in-person or hybrid option for other children.
"How does that impact transportation? How does that affect food service? How does that affect instruction?" Sortisio said. "It is a very complicated process. I don’t have a great answer how we’re going to do that."
Families gravely concerned
The only remote-only option that Lewiston-Porter had planned to offer was for families with medically vulnerable children.
That changed after the district surveyed families.
“What we discovered is that there are a lot of families gravely concerned about it – whether they have a medically vulnerable child or not,” said Superintendent Paul Casseri, who has decided the district will offer all families a remote-only option.
In some communities, parents have circulated online petitions to lobby for such an option.
Some Williamsville parents signed a petition that called on their district to go fully remote this year. The district hasn’t gone that far, but it has decided to offer parents the option to have their children learn entirely remotely this year.
Orchard Park parent Heather Hartel has collected more than 100 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon on an online petition at Change.org calling on her district to offer a virtual-only option to everyone, not just students who have health issues. She has also gathered more than 700 signatures on an online petition calling on the governor to require schools to offer families a remote-only option.
“My whole thing is you need to offer virtual for everyone without questioning why someone needs it,” said Hartel, who has a child in middle school and another in high school. “We’re not comfortable sending our kids back.”
Hartel also noted that allowing more families to have their children learn remotely reduces the number of children in schools, allowing for easier social distancing.
“There are too many unknowns at this point,” wrote one parent who signed the Orchard Park petition. “And keeping my family safe is my number 1 priority.”
