Buffalo's school superintendent has laid out a sweeping approach to reinvent teaching and learning in the midst of a pandemic likely to surge again and a national movement for racial equity that has highlighted grave systemic problems.
To make that happen, the state would need to grant Superintendent Kriner Cash several waivers that would make possible a dramatic reshaping of education in the city for the coming academic year.
Schools likely would open a few weeks later, perhaps into October, if Cash gets the waivers he seeks. Students would be exempt from state assessments and Regents exams. Science labs could be done virtually – or not at all. Students would spend more time working on projects and teaching one another. Buffalo would not be required to provide 180 days of instruction.
"Our schools cannot go back to the conditions under which they operated before Covid-19 or we will fail our students, families, educators and communities at the time of their greatest need," Cash wrote in the district's reopening plan.
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He has proposed a four-phase reopening that would provide teachers and staff at least two weeks of training in September, time for them to meet one-on-one with students and families, and the ability to address social, emotional and technological needs before diving into academics.
Every district in the state had to post reopening plans online by Friday. Other local districts kept theirs to the required logistical and procedural issues that needed to be addressed.
Each district’s plan is different. But nearly all seek to reopen the week after Labor Day using a hybrid model in which students attend school in person two days a week and receive remote instruction the other three days. Many districts are building in one day a week – Wednesday, in many cases – on which all students will learn remotely, and buildings will undergo a deep cleaning.
In a few cases, districts have rolled out a different model. In Clarence, for instance, elementary students will attend for half the day in person – mornings for half of them, afternoons for the rest – and remotely the rest of the day. And in the Starpoint district, elementary students will attend school in person five full days a week.
Buffalo students in every grade will attend school in person every other day. That means that one week, a student would attend in person on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The following week, that student would attend on Tuesday and Thursday.
Cash declined through spokeswoman Elena Cala to comment for this story. She noted that various parent leaders were talking to reporters about the plan.
"These are the discussions that are most important in the wake of the release of the draft working plan by the District," Cala said in a text message.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said that schools will be able to reopen in person as long as the regional coronavirus infection rate remains 5% over a two-week average. He has said he will announce by Aug. 7 which regions can open their schools. Western New York's infection rate has hovered around 1% for weeks now.
Most local districts, including Buffalo, say it is not possible to open fully in person, since their buildings are not big enough to accommodate all their students, given the required six feet of social distancing.
Cash is proposing a four-phase plan for Buffalo students:
- Time for teachers and other staff to set up classrooms, learn about health and safety protocols and work on developing an "innovative" curriculum.
- Greeting students and families either in person or remotely, perhaps one-on-one, to talk about new protocols such as wearing masks, assessing social and emotional needs and identifying technology needs.
- Resuming instruction, building relationships with students and establishing new routines.
- Assessing how to modify the plan, if necessary, and move forward.
Reactions to Buffalo’s plan have been mixed.
Three of the five main parent groups in Buffalo, along with the Buffalo teachers union, have sharply criticized the district for not involving them enough in developing the plan.
After preliminary high-level meetings in June, the district’s reopening committee did not meet again until late July, according to Jessica Bauer Walker, a member of the committee and mother of two children at International School 45. The committee held four Zoom meetings over two weeks and were given a skeleton version of the reopening plan and told not to share it with anyone else.
Members of the committee raised questions and concerns that were not addressed in the district’s plan, she said.
"We want parent voice and choice in this process,” said Bauer Walker, president of the Community Health Worker Parent Association. “The plan should not have been submitted without community members, parents and caregivers having the opportunity to review it.”
Rachel Fix Dominguez, co-chair of the Buffalo Parent Teacher Organization, noted that parents have a lot of questions about it. She is concerned about the alternating-day schedule and the challenges it likely will present for parents needing to arrange childcare.
She is optimistic about the plan, though, especially its provisions around social-emotional wellness, anti-racism work and a four-phase reopening.
“It provides a clear vision for how we could do this in a way that, frankly, will make nobody happy – but that will keep the greatest number of people safe, both in terms of the pandemic and in terms of the social and emotional wellness issues that have arisen for so many of us,” said Fix Dominguez, who holds a doctorate in the sociology of education and has a child entering seventh grade at City Honors.
On Saturday at his coronavirus briefing, Gov. Cuomo made it clear that parents across the state are the people who will ultimately decide whether to send their children back to the classroom.
Parents are already well informed and will be looking for details in their district's reopening plans, he said. If they do not see answers to their questions, they will conclude their district is not prepared.
Reopening plans should represent the start of a discussion between parents and district officials, Cuomo said.
“The burden is on the districts to make the parents comfortable. If parents are not confident, you'll have partial attendance and that is not going to serve anyone,” he said.
Keith Jones, whose daughter is a rising senior at Bennett High School, praised Buffalo's phased-in approach, which he said will help administrators iron out myriad underappreciated logistical hurdles, such as how to transport thousands of socially distanced students without adequate buses or bus monitors.
But whatever the district does, Jones – who has diabetes and spent almost a month in the hospital with pneumonia earlier this year – does not plan to send his daughter back to school before 2021.
He pointed out that Buffalo's reopening committee of fewer than 40 adults did not meet in person to draft the plan.
"We're too scared to be around each other, but we're sending the kids back to school?" asked Jones, a leader in Buffalo's Parent Teacher Organization. "There's something wrong with that picture. If we can't meet and we're wearing masks – we're responsible adults – how are we gonna do this with kids?"
Staff reporter Lou Michel contributed to this article.
