Honorable New Jersey Leaders, Superintendent Vincent McHale, and Borough of Closter Board of Education representatives:
We, the undersigned, insist on the following immediate modifications to the Closter School District reopening plan:
The Closter School District increase classroom capacity and in-person instruction to 5 days a week for all students, now.
The Closter School District guarantee live teaching of all core academic subjects, five days a week at Tenakill Middle School, now.
The Closter School district ensure in-school instruction five days a week, in the 2021-2022 academic year.
Our hybrid model is substandard. Teachers spend half of an already shortened day managing elementary behavioral issues, and on-screen tech issues. Minimal learning occurs. Governor Murphy’s Reopening Plan for New Jersey requires social distancing “to the maximum extent practicable.” He writes: If schools are not able to maintain this physical distance, additional modifications should be considered. These include using physical barriers between desks and turning desks to face the same direction (rather than facing each other) or having students sit on only one side of the table, spaced apart.
In fact, a new study published last week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, suggests public schools may be able to reopen safely for in-person instruction as long as children maintain three feet of distance between them, with other mitigation measures maintained, like wearing masks.
Closter’s leadership has not presented, and certainly not proceeded with any such creative approaches. In fact, offers of help from the community have been repeatedly rejected. Unlike neighboring districts, there has been neither creativity nor transparency about plans for now or the future. Our community needs an effective, forward-thinking steward. Our Board of Education has also been unwilling to move our educational model forward. We are languishing without a roadmap.
The Closter School District has had zero cases of in-school transmission, proving that any community spread does not translate to in school spread. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics: “The preponderance of evidence indicates that children and adolescents are less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, children may be less likely to become infected and to spread infection.”
We are the ONLY district in the region that is not offering a five-day return to school this month. Our students are suffering grave academic, emotional, and psychological setbacks from isolation and remote learning, which has no pedagogical justification. Despite best efforts by many teachers, to whom we are very grateful, remote learning does not educate students nearly as effectively as in-person learning, especially students with special needs who rely on in-person school-based services.
As working parents, we represent a major portion of the region’s tax base, and yet our voices are being stymied. We now speak clearly and loudly: Closter cannot afford the equity, health, safety, and economic consequences that will result from failing to provide a safe, in-person, full-time education to children whose families choose it. We demand that our elected representatives, and our appointed Superintendent, make this their priority.
