“Our children deserve an education revolution.” This was the title of a Newsday article written by Superintendent Hynes on May 2, 2020, two months after Covid-19 closed our schools. Seven months into the pandemic, Dr. Hynes has yet to offer plans for K-12 virtual learning based on equity and access, community-building, sound pedagogy, social-emotional learning, administrative transparency, family communication, or whole child education, all of which were the major tenants of his promises to our district and why the Board of Education hired him.

After a month of pivots and promises, this past Friday afternoon Dr. Hynes released the Unity Elementary Virtual Plan. We want to state clearly:

We reject the newly proposed Unity plan.
We reject being forced to choose between education and family safety.
We reject being railroaded into a year-long commitment to VL.
We reject capping the Virtual Academy in the middle of a pandemic, leaving no room for families who may need to opt into Virtual Learning at a later date.
We reject ripping our children out of classrooms where they have built connections and community for the first time in months.
We reject re-traumatizing our children by asking them to start the school year over in mid-October.
We reject the absence of a tether to the home elementary community with established PTAs, HSAs, clubs, and school pride events.
We reject the potential collateral damage this will inflict on our in-person learners, from possible teacher shifts to increasing class sizes during a pandemic.
We reject being asked to make any decision without at least one interactive town hall on K-12 virtual learning in the Port Washington School District.

This petition officially demands the following immediately:

• Push back the October 2, 2020 deadline for opting into the proposed Port Washington Elementary level Virtual Learning Plan.
• Plan one or more interactive Town Hall meetings for next week dedicated to the state of K-12 Virtual Learning in Port Washington so that we can ask questions directly to the Superintendent and the Virtual Academy Administrator.

In his Newsday article, Dr. Hynes wrote, “Now is the time for our school leaders to generate a new compelling philosophy of education and an innovative architecture for a just and humane school system.” We could not agree more. Our pandemic pedagogy needs to be student-centered, not the result of a jumble of last-minute pivots.  Our children have already lost seven months of learning. We cannot afford to lose another day.

Respectfully,
The Stakeholders of the Port Washington School District