After Winter Break, MUSD pupils will be online – for a week at least

When school resumes after Winter Break, students in the Maricopa Unified School District will be distance-learning – for the first week at least.

That was the unanimous decision Thursday night by the MUSD Governing Board, which met in special session to consider the latest COVID-19 transmission data and decide how students will learn.

Board members agreed their decisions should be data-driven. But there is one issue with the data provided by Pinal County. It is two weeks old when the board gets it.

“It’s crazy to be making these decisions based on data that’s two weeks old, but that’s what we’ve got, so we’ll keep doing the best we can with it,” said board member Jim Jordan. “I don’t foresee us going to all distance learning for an extended period, like for an entire quarter at a time. We’ll most likely keep making decisions on a short-term basis.”

Board members Torri Anderson and Ben Owens agreed with Jordan’s assessment.

“We’re going to keep letting the data drive our decisions,” Anderson said, “so we’ll most likely continue with decisions made on a short-term or week-to-week basis because the data can change so fast and we have to react to those changes.”

The board decided Dec. 9 that students would return to classes for the spring quarter on Jan. 5, in accordance with the school calendar. Superintendent Dr. Tracey Lopeman had recommended students return Jan. 11 to give the district more time to quarantine after the holidays and hopefully reduce the community spread of the virus.

But the board left a decision on whether school would resume in-person or online until Thursday so it could consider more recent data.

The data presented by Lopeman made a compelling case for distance learning at the current time. During the period from Oct. 13-Nov. 10 there was an average of 7.5 positive cases per week in the school district; in the next reporting period, from Nov. 11-Dec. 9, the average rate rose to 11 cases per week; and in the most recent reporting week, from Dec. 10-16, it was 16 cases.

Another area of concern regarding a shift to distance learning was voiced by board president AnnaMarie Knorr. She raised the issue of what will happen to school staff when the federal government’s CARES act funding runs out at the end of the year. She indicated that when schools are closed for quarantine, thus eliminating the need for school staff members like custodial staff or school lunch workers, many have been getting their pay through the CARES Act. She wondered how they would survive in 2021 absent another federal government funding bill.

Tom Beckett, the director of human resources for MUSD, said the district will find work for any staffers who want it, regardless of whether they get continued federal aid.

“The district will try to find meaningful work for any employee who is available to work,” he said. “I’m not aware of any situations where someone has been denied work if they wanted it. We’ll find meaningful opportunities for our employees to work if they want to. And if they’re out sick we’ll try to find general leave for them, or extended FMLA.”

Knorr added it is important to remember the district was able to keep all its employees working throughout the pandemic.

Throughout the meeting, there was a consensus for consistency in how the children are learning – for students, teachers, staff and parents.

“We want to bring it all back to consistency,” said Anderson. “I’m worried about the in and out, in and out of the classroom. I have spoken to many parents who were insistent on in-person learning at the beginning, now asking for distance learning just so there is some consistency and they know what to expect. That back and forth has been more of a detriment to our students’ success and to teacher and student mental health than anything else with this whole thing.”

The board scheduled another special meeting for Thursday, Jan. 7 at 6:30 p.m. to discuss whether classes should continue exclusively online after that date, or if students – at least those whose parents want them to – should be allowed to return to in-person learning.