A Request For Your Vote: Evelyn Gomez, School Committee

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Photo: Evelyn Gomez is running to retain her seat on the Belmont School Committee:

The Belmontonian is providing candidates/campaigners of ballot questions in contested races the opportunity to make a request for votes in the final week of the election race.

I am running for the school committee because I believe that every child deserves an education that develops their full potential. I was appointed to the school committee last June during the most disruptive public health and education crisis we have seen in generations. These months have felt like a trial by fire, but I have emerged more committed than ever and armed with the experience necessary to move our school district forward. I am seeking election to my first full term on the school committee to continue the work of making our district more transparent, equitable, and innovative.   

Since my appointment last summer, I aimed to communicate with empathy and transparency to help families adjust to the ever-changing conditions of this crisis. I quickly recognized that communication during a crisis is critical and actively worked to open dialogue between the school committee and the community. These are the concrete actions I took to improve communication and transparency:

  1. I held open office hours. When I proposed to hold a series of school committee sponsored roundtables with families this summer, I was told that was outside of my official duties. Undeterred, I started offering open office hours as an individual, including listening sessions with students. Later, the school committee came to realize the benefit of these and adopted the practice after all.
  2. I pushed for systematic data-collection. I advocated for district wide surveys to form a more complete picture of what families actually wanted from their schools and what students needed, rather than guessing as to what those needs might be.
  3. I advocated for parent and student voices in our decision making processes. Our community has volunteered their time, skills, and resources to help the district navigate the challenges of the pandemic. In the Fall, I convened parents to help inform my decision making process around health metrics and transmission mitigation strategies, and provide insight into how the committee weighed their options. 

Family engagement has never been higher and I want to focus this energy into positive change for our schools. Given our increasingly diverse student population, we have the opportunity to be proactive, keep parent engagement high, and actively seek out the voices that are often left out of decision making. I acknowledge that my decisions had a direct impact on thousands of students and families across our community; I feel that weight every day. I am willing to learn from my mistakes. Without increased transparency, we erode trust and goodwill with the community we represent.

As the child of immigrants and an English Language Learner, I am uniquely positioned to bring about the changes our schools need. I will focus on improving the educational experiences and outcomes for all of our children, with a particular focus on providing equal access to opportunities for all students. 

This is why I spearheaded the creation of the school committee’s new Equity Subcommittee in my first three months, with the goal of dismantling the systems that deny access to opportunities for some students and to bring accountability to a school system that is currently not serving all students equitably. Our district will soon initiate a district-wide equity audit to closely examine the systems and decision points that lead to inequity in students’ access to opportunities. 

As an engineer, I am trained to solve problems and make data-driven decisions. I firmly believe that decision-making is an iterative process and am committed to revisiting decisions when new data is available. I am an innovative thinker and bring a refreshingly new set of insights to the challenges we face in our schools. Since my appointment, I have proven that I will not shy away from challenging the school committee and our administrators to think creatively when approaching the issues we face, or even take an entirely different approach when necessary. That’s the kind of thinking the school committee needs. It’s the kind of leadership our schools need.

I’m nothing if not unapologetically persistent and relentlessly driven to have a positive impact in our community. Visit evelyngomez.org to learn more about my candidacy. I hope you will join me in this fight and respectfully ask for your vote on April 6. 

Evelyn Gómez, Belmont School Committee, Carleton Road

A Request For Your Vote: Jamal Saeh, School Committee

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Photo: Jamal Saeh for School Committee (Saeh For Schools Facebook Page)

The Belmontonian is providing candidates/campaigners of ballot questions in contested races the opportunity to make a request for votes in the final week of the election race.

I am running for Belmont School Committee because I want to bring a sense of urgency to tackle challenges, bring disciplined data-driven decision making and leverage my experience with budgeting and long-term planning to help Belmont public schools support every student in reaching their potential. I believe my background and experience bring needed skills and diversity to the committee. 

I am an immigrant, son of a teacher. I moved to the US for education and to Belmont to provide my two boys with the best public education. I understand the path a good education provides, specifically to marginalized communities.  

I believe in the vision of Belmont Public Schools that all students are capable of learning at a high level and that it’s the duty of the SC to provide leadership and oversight to ensure that we maintain that promise. 

In the near term, we must deal with the fundamental challenge of operating schools during the pandemic. This requires science-based, data-driven decisions at the intersection of health, policy, and quality that must be done within a budget envelope. That’s my day-to-day job. I believe my professional experience adds a unique perspective to the SC. I am an executive at a pharmaceutical company. As a scientist and a leader, I am accountable for the research and clinical development of innovative medicines for cancer patients, and I do it with the requisite sense of urgency that cancer patients deserve.  

I believe that good leaders identify and remove obstacles. In August, when it was clear that COVID testing could enable a safe return to in-person learning, I partnered with the community to offer solutions. I proposed a developmentally appropriate, cost-effective pooled testing proposal to the SC in September. It allowed us to get a baseline for all students and teachers and provide teachers with weekly testing and surveillance for the student population at all grades. It was ignored. Neighboring towns adopted it and operationalized it soon thereafter. The state implemented a similar program four months later. Belmont could have been a leader but chose not to act. Surveillance enabled schools to have data on the in-school transmission which enabled them to move to full in-person ahead of any Department of Elementary and Secondary Education mandate. As a member of the SC, I pledge to continue to collaborate with Belmont’s talented community to address new challenges and listen with authenticity to build creative solutions.  

It is also critical that mid and long-range planning be prioritized. With two new schools opening soon and a shift of fourth grade to the Chenery, a comprehensive plan needs to be in place to ensure these transitions are smooth for students and teachers. New opportunities will exist for 7-8 grade students when they are collocated with the high school, including access to the accelerated and collaborative curriculum. Clear budget decisions and oversight will be crucial in order to take advantage of these opportunities. I will work to ensure collaborative and stretch goals are in place, and outcomes routinely monitored.

I believe in greater transparency from the SC and School District. Transparency requires an open and honest decision-making process; it allows biases to be confronted and assumptions to be fully vetted. Transparency empowers the community and improves decisions and outcomes. Doing so rebuilds public trust, our biggest asset as leaders.

I pledge to protect excellence and equity for all students. I believe that we need to identify the causes of imbalance in access to parts of the Belmont Public School curriculum (e.g. uneven or ineffective communication with families; failure of earlier or prerequisite classes), confront and call out biases, revamp our curriculum where appropriate, and remedy the achievement gap.  I am encouraged that the Student Opportunity Act will more fully fund English Language Learner and Special Education programs and pledge to make sure the SC takes full advantage of this state program. I also believe that all students need to have the opportunity to find and pursue their passion. This means that we need to maintain or increase options in core and elective classes as well as extracurriculars that allow students to be sufficiently challenged in their areas of interest because it is then that they are really inspired and can learn and grow.

If elected on April 6th, I will bring my collaborative data-driven decision-making, and my focus on transparency and accountability to improve oversight and help keep BPS Belmont’s jewel in the crown.

Jamal Carlos Saeh, Watson Road, Precinct 1

Letter To The Editor: Donner’s Work on School Committee Is More Important Than Ever

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Photo: Tara Donner is running for re-election to the School Committee

Belmont is blessed with an amazing abundance of candidates for the School Committee this year, but Tara Donner, who has served three years is a standout incumbent who deserves your vote.

Transparency and community outreach are so important for our community. Under the crush of hours and hours of meetings and decisions to make, it’s been difficult to get outreach right. But Tara has always been an advocate for outreach and was instrumental in launching “office hours” for the School Committee. She’s been a regular there – talking with frustrated parents, taking questions, investigating issues raised, and talking solutions. The School Committee needs so much more of this, but Tara is showing how to get the work done.

We’ve always struggled with diversity and inclusion in our school district. This is why Tara’s work in establishing the School Committee’s Equity Subcommittee is so important. Even while our students and families grow more diverse, our educators are mostly White. While we’ve begun work on the curriculum, it needs much more attention to ensure that inclusiveness and the full diversity of Belmont are honored and represented in our children’s education. We need so much more work on student outcomes, which tilt unfavorably against our Black and LatinX students. Tara has been there from the beginning pushing this work forward.

We have a well-educated community. But, historically, the School Committee has drawn from parents and other community members who do not know teaching as a profession. This is where Tara’s experience is both unique and extremely helpful. Tara is both a parent and an educator in Winchester. With this experience, she’s able to converse with parents about what’s happening in the classroom in a way that no one else can. She’s also able to offer a learned perspective when it comes to classroom solutions. This has only been made doubly important during the pandemic, as the School Committee has navigated many transitions from remote learning to hybrid, and now to full in-person learning. Tara knows how to get this work done.

Tara is someone with a deep knowledge of and passion for education. She has more integrity than just about anyone I know. She’s also about the most compassionate and caring individual that serves in an elected position in Belmont. As we continue marching towards normal in our schools, Tara Donner’s work is more important than ever. She deserves your vote.

Mike Crowley, School Committee, Town Meeting Member Precinct 8

Letter To The Editor: Demonstrate Your Anger And Dissatisfaction – Vote No On The Override

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Photo: Letter to the editor

Letter to the editor:

We are all stressed these days. We are working from home, learning from home, socialize online and managing many emotions. We transform every room in the house from dining room to classroom to board room and beyond. Everyone is tired and we yearn for how things used to be. 

But do we really want things to go back to “normal”? Regardless of how you interpret this question, I hope we do not return to how things used to be. If we have learned anything through this pandemic, how it used to be doesn’t work. Blindly throwing more money at a problem does not solve the problem.  

Since the day we closed schools down more than a year ago, our administration and school committee have failed our students and families. The School Committee was not and still is not up to the task at hand. Its primary role is to negotiate with the Belmont Education Association (BEA) which they have utterly failed to do over and over this year. 

Teachers must also take part of this blame. Although many teachers have worked hard to transition to remote learning, others have chosen politics, toed the line and committed a grave disservice to the students they are supposed to serve. Shame on them. 

Our families are left in dismay and frustrated; the ones who are able are running for the hills, searching for solutions outside the district in any way they can. Those remaining are engaged in arguments of spending more money because they do not see a better way forward, despite the negative impacts on many of our families that are barely making ends meet. We are a year into a pandemic, which is by no means near its end. Our parents and students are understandably dissatisfied and have a right to be upset, but where should this frustration be focused? The leadership, “lack of funding,” or should it be something else that is goes below the surface? 

I have run twice for town office in two years. Both times with the position of reducing our overall town spending. No one wants to run on a platform to reduce spending which is admittedly an uphill battle, but one I believe must be undertaken. Even those who are in favor of the proposed override, agree that we lack fiscal oversight and management in town. Everyone agrees that we spend more than our revenue. Everyone agrees the town deficit is an inherited from generations of the past.

What we cannot agree on is how we fix the problem. There are many ways we can come together to solve this problem. However, this ridiculous push to continuing to spend our way out of a deficit is not sustainable. This approach will never force change upon our leadership and will forever be a financial burden on families.

I agree with Jeff Liberty’s Letter to the Editor published in the Belmontonian on March 21. Everyone is exhausted with the same conversations and arguments every single election. What I do not agree with; however, is electing the same people again and again or replacing leaders with their cronies that prevent to town from moving forward to create meaningful change for the betterment of our town and our educational system.

I understand and agree someone like me who is outspoken and takes unpopular opinions can be a scary decision at the ballot box. After years of ineffective meetings, committees, communication, and lack of good decision making, it is time to demand change. It’s time to hold our current leaders and their mistakes accountable with your vote.  

Voting either yes or no for the override will have real consequences. Ask yourself: will your family, friends, and neighbors still be able to live here after you cast your vote? Will you be able to look them in the eye and tell them you voted yes or no? Will your vote truly create fiscal control? A no vote gives us a real opportunity for change. A yes vote ensures the status quo. 

The town argues that current services are unsustainable in the current environment. I disagree. We are delaying hard but inevitable choices, structural changes that must be made. These changes must be made despite the outcome of the vote. Our community relies on us, collectively, to work together for the greater good. We want great teachers – we have many – we want to support our seniors to age in place – some are – and we want to have inclusive community – we are definitely not there yet. 

Years of ineffective leadership and mismanagement have taken us to where we are today. This is a simple and undeniable fact, and one we talk about during every election cycle. We have historically underfunded our schools and town departments because of, not despite of, the mismanagement of funds, which has caused division within our community. 

Challenges can also bring a community together, and because of this I am hopeful. The challenges we face are clear and defined, and therefore resolvable. This will require trust in each other and accepting new ways of thinking.  

The conclusion should be simple. Vote no against the override on April 6. Demonstrate your anger and dissatisfaction with our town’s leaders. Show you want real accountability and demand a clear, actionable plan for our collective future. Show you want a School Committee that will strongly negotiate for all our children and get them back in school. Show you want Town Meeting members that will put your precincts interest before their own. Show the Select Board that fiscally responsibility is a priority. And show you matter; demand this now.  

Timothy Flood, Wiley Road, Candidate for School Committee

Statement: Belmont Education Association Addresses Its Approach To Teaching In COVID

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Photo: The logo of the Belmont Education Association

In the past year as the Belmont School District has been adapting long-standing standards of learning and teaching in response to a once-in-a-century pandemic, one group consciously quiet during that time has been the teachers and staff and their labor representative, the Belmont Education Association.

As the School Committee and district administration has been the face of the ever-changing strategies to mitigate COVID-19 in Belmont’s six schools while keeping learning a priority, teachers have been in the background, only rarely breaking their vow of silence as parents and students began questioning educators and the BEA for being perceived as obstacles to the return of students to the classroom.

But in a response to a series of questions – they can be found at the bottom of the article – from the Belmontonian, the union issued a statement addressed the reasons behind its approach to teaching in a time of pandemic and discussing its view on key issues facing teachers and the union moving forward.

The Belmont Education Association statement:

A year ago, the Belmont Public Schools and the Belmont Education Association entered into a collaborative process to address issues related to instruction during a pandemic. Health & Safety, Social-Emotional Well-being, and Academic Engagement were our shared priorities for remote and then hybrid learning. Belmont’s options were limited as we faced the lean resources of space and personnel to operate safely in person. As educators, lacking statewide guidance, certainty, and evolving recommendations, we worked through interest-based conversations for eight months to effectively make decisions. This changed in November when we entered into formal bargaining. Formal bargaining forced us to work through all the issues in a tight timeframe with little opportunity to understand our myriad and changing interests and priorities and no chance to pilot our ideas.

As a union, our approach has always been to increase transparency and partner with the community to support our students. Our requests for open bargaining (inviting all community members to attend negotiations) are consistently rejected, so we sought other opportunities to connect with parents through PTOs and community forums. Transparency and mutual understanding are important for all constituent groups moving forward. We are committed to an approach that includes all community members in a conversation about what is best for the Belmont Public Schools.  

At times it’s tempting to see the union as one person, but in reality, it is the school employees – union members whom parents see every day – who are the decision-makers. Members actively guide and determine our positions. We have expanded transparency and improved internal conversations by including ever more teachers, administrators, administrative assistants, and professional aides in bargaining. We understand that this has not been the same experience for parents. In retrospect, we should have included members of the Belmont School Committee and parent community in our Joint Labor-Management Committee meetings.

Moving forward, we will continue to prioritize CDC guidance for ventilation, correct use of masks, and physical distancing (at least six feet) as the most important mitigation measures for in-person learning.  Surveillance testing and vaccines are also essential considerations as we expand in-person learning. We remain committed to our students and each other’s Health & Safety, Social-Emotional Well-being, and Academic Engagement. 

Questions submitted to the Belmont Education Association

1. The CDC has stated “K-12 schools should be the last settings to close after all other mitigation measures in the community have been employed, and the first to reopen when they can do so safely.” When will the BEA consider Belmont schools “safe” for full-time in-school learning? Is it when all the measures in the CDC roadmap or some other matrix to reopening schools are met? Why is it taking so long to reach these goals?
2. How important is teachers’ vaccination to meeting the level of a “safe” workplace?
3. Are attempts to reduce the six-foot social distance requirement a “deal-breaker”? 
4. The school district has created a working group – the Return to In-Person Learning Group – to make recommendations and a plan to bring all students back to school full-time. Is this the correct approach to take or would the BEA accept a more direct, faster approach from the superintendent or school committee to open schools?
5. The level of animus with some parents/residents towards the BEA and some teachers have reached a level last seen when teachers called a work action in 1995. “Why does the BEA have so much power”, “The town should follow science and not the union” and “There needs to be a lockout of the teachers union” are just a few comments on a popular Facebook page. Those parents believe the BEA is the chief impediment to full-time, in-school learning in the district, either by slow-walking negotiations or being overly cautious. 1). What misconceptions do these parents have of the union’s position/power in returning students to school full-time? 2. Do you believe it was the right approach to remain silent to the public – not on negotiations with the school committee but on general views of teaching during a pandemic? 3). Do you believe that the BEA will need to reach out to parents/residents to work towards improving the relationship it had pre-pandemic?

Belmont Readies For Schools Reopening As District Defends Restart Process; A Question of Whose Mandate

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Photo: The elementary schools will be open for business on April 5 … if not sooner.

Days after the state’s education set dates for reopening of elementary schools, the Belmont School District revealed on Tuesday, March 9 its plan that will allow the district’s youngest students to return to full-time in-school classes on Monday, April 6.

Created from recommendations by the Return to In-Person Learning Working Group, the blueprint will provide an educational experience for children in Kindergarten to 4th grade lacking since exactly a year ago this week.

“Our administrators and administrative team at the central office have been working hard on this for over a month and a half and we’re glad we are making progress … and to let our families know that as we try to finish this year as strong as possible, that we are prepared to have a goal of opening [schools] in-person learning next year,” said John Phelan, superintendent of Belmont District Schools as he presented the plan to the School Committee at its regularly scheduled Tuesday meeting.

The new plan was being developed by the Working Group when the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) which oversees public education in Massachusetts, issued an edict requiring districts to replace their hybrid systems in elementary schools with full-day in-school classes.

The plan for in-person schooling at the town’s four elementary schools has been discussed for the past two weeks by the working group, school committee and district with the final recommendations released Tuesday:

  • Students in school 5 days/week with the same timing as our pre-Covid school schedule;
  • Offer academics, specials (art, physical education), lunch, and snacks as part of the school day. Lunch and some electives classes will be made possible by setting up large wedding tents at each elementary school and a pair at the Chenery Middle and Belmont High schools.
  • Include specialized instruction for students with disabilities and students who are English learners; 
  • Provide bus transportation to all student in accordance with DESE guidance;
  • Implement classroom capacity, individual distancing, and quarantining requirements from CDC and DESE guidance.

Parents who’ll choose to have their children attend classes remotely will also attend school five days per week. Yet one “trade-off” of moving to a full-time school day will be the end of live streaming that allowed for in-class and at-home students to learn together. This will likely require many remote students to “loss” their current teachers who will transition to in-class teaching, replaced by remote-only educators.

“These are some of the challenges that we are facing in order to be able to provide these two learning models,” said Phelan.

Parents were sent a survey last week on which learning model they would choose for their students which will, in turn, determine how many teachers would be in the classroom and those teaching online.

More specific information on in-school elementary education can be found in the form of a PowerPoint presentation at the Belmont Public School website which was presented at the Tuesday School Committee meeting.

You can see the March 9 Belmont School Committee meeting at Belmont Media Center here.

Phelan noted DESE is requiring middle schools to follow the elementary schools in full-time in-school learning by April 28. And even though the state has not made any time certain for high school students, Phelan said the Working Group will be moving forward on recommendations for reopening the middle and high school.

Tuesday also provided an opportunity for Phelan to defend the district and school committee’s deliberative approach to reopening the schools to the criticism from many residents who felt the superintendent and committee members were ignoring physical data compiled by parents indicating students could have safely returned to classrooms earlier in the school year.

“Why in person now versus earlier in the school year than in the winter,” Phelan asked as he spoke of the success of the Return to In-Person Learning Working Group in formulating the recommendations using data and information gathered internally. The superintendent pointed out that the following guidance from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that only within the past few weeks had it become the optimum time “about bringing more students back to schools.”

“But back in February and January, that was not the case,” he said.

Whose mandate is it anyways?

In a sidebar to the meeting, a question of who has the mandate to speak for educating Belmont students could preview issues facing the Belmont School Committee after Town Election when new members come on board.

Committee member Mike Crowley chided the emergency mandate from DESE Commissioner (and Belmont High alum) Jeffrey Riley directing children back in the classroom either absent of any guidance on a number of issues including the social distancing for unmasked activities and conflicts with union bargaining agreements or “that “DESE guidance seems to be updated about every five minutes,” said Andrea Prestwich, school committee chair.

“I do not like that DESE has usurped the authority of the school committee to make decisions about these planning efforts. This is work that we asked for,” said Crowley, a sentiment seconded by Prestwich, saying she was “holding my tongue about my feelings about DESE, but you did say it nicely.”

Crowley’s statement is hardly a lone voice in the wilderness as many school committees, teacher unions and associations came out to pan Riley’s seeming overreach into local governance. Phelan joined a large group of nearby superintendents in signing a letter asking DESE to work with school districts to come up with a more concrete plan for a return to school, including joining the effort to vaccinate school staff.

While current members were expressing disappointment with the state, School Committee candidate Jamal Saeh, whose run for office is fueled by a growing populism among a segment of the community critical of what they perceive as unwarranted delays in reopening schools, wasted little time in castigating Crowley for his critical take on the state’s intrusion in the running of local government.

“When I hear a school committee member say that DESE usurped the authority of the school committee, I feel compelled to amplify the voice of those parents’ opinion of the school committee [that it] is not the mandate of the community,” said Saeh.

Saeh’s apparently offhand comment was interesting in so much that an elected school board, by state law, was provided a mandate by voters to run the municipality’s schools including managing its own budget, independent hiring practices, and creating policies on how to educate its students.

With The Pressure On, School District Introduces Group To Lead Belmont Back To In-Person Learning

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Photo: A working group has been created to facilitate to return students back to school full time.

With pressure increasing to bring back students to the classroom, the Belmont Schools District announced this week the formation of a working group whose charge is to create a roadmap to quickly reopen the district to in-school learning.

“It is our full intention. as a district, to identify the challenges and … to see where we can look for opportunities and also anticipate some updated guidance,” said Belmont Superintendent John Phelan before the Belmont School Committee on Tuesday, Feb. 2 as he introduced the “Return to In-Person Learning Group” which will hold its first meeting on Monday, Feb. 22.

The district is running under a hybrid school day which provides a limited amount of in-school instruction.

Unlike past committees and groups that produced a final summery that “lies gathering dust,” Phelan said this group is committed to producing “rolling recommendations” where breakthroughs and solutions can be rapidly implemented.

“This committee is really charged with identifying those challenges and giving us a roadmap for when those challenges [become] opportunities … and how we can move forward,” he said.

The new working group, introduced by Phelan on Jan. 19, is established just as the district and school committee is feeling the pushback from national and state governments and local groups and residents to find some way to put kids back in schools full-time, which hasn’t occurred since mid-March of last year.

The day after the superintendent’s announcement, newly-appointed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said “[t]here is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen” without the need for teachers to be vaccinated. She also said schools would need to meet a myriad of safety protocols – masks, distancing, ventilation and surveillance testing – to open safely.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has been advocating for the return of in-person learning whether it is hybrid or full time instruction since the school year began in September, providing incentives such as testing . Locally, the frustration of parents on the slow roll out in September of the hybrid plan and no indication of a date certain for person to person instruction has led some to run for the two school committee seats

The district is also feeling the push from the local teachers union. While silent throughout the COVID crisis, it is clear the Belmont Education Association has emphasized safety of its members during the nearly-year long pandemic.

The state union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association has asked been adamant that districts wait until all teachers are vaccines before educators back into classrooms.

On Tuesday, the School Committee voted to join a letter signed by 42 superintendents and 23 union presidents endorsing the calling for teachers to be given preference in receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Currently, Massachusetts teachers are part of the third group in Phase 2 of the state’s vaccine timeline which start later in February.

“In order to do our jobs at the level desired by [the state], the professionals working in our field should be vaccinated as quickly as possible so they can continue to work with the children they come in contact daily,” said Prestwich reading from the letter.

The working group will be led by independent veteran educators with connections to the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Michelle Rinehart and Dr. Drew Echelson,

“The purpose … for this working group is to develop specific and actionable tools that will support Belmont public schools in determining when and how to bring more students back to in-person learning,” said Rinehart.

The group’s charge is three fold: Discover the conditions which will allow the schools to increase the level of in-person learning, determine the current conditions and what are the “roadblocks” impeding students return to the classroom and finally submit draft rolling recommendations to the superintendent that will outline the path to person-to-person learning.

The working group will be divided into subgroups which will focus on critical areas for a safe return such as social distancing, vaccination, testing, classroom capacity, PPE and health supplies and transmission rates.

The working group will also pay attention to changes in and emerging guidance and regulations from national and state government entities – the CDC, the Massachusetts departments of Elementary and Secondary Education and of Public Health – on opening schools, follow COVID cases and trends as well as focusing on possible additional funding available from the Biden administration which will be in line with his initiative of ramping up the opening of a majority of K-8 schools in the first 100 days of the Biden presidency.

The group will be one of the largest in town history: 27 members – represented by teachers, students, residents, health officials and the school committee – meeting weekly with biweekly public gatherings to provide updates and receive feedback and insight from the public and other stakeholders. The members will be selected Feb. 9.

Phelan sees the working group laboring through February and March with its final recommendations submitted to him by late March/Early April.

“There’s going to be a lot of work to do with the context of the work ever changing,” Phelan said on Jan. 19.

Opinion: Open Belmont High School With Livestreaming, A Solution That Can Be Implemented In Days [Video]

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Photo: The Youtube video of the parents explaining its proposal

Belmont High School students can and need to return to in-person learning.  The hybrid model originally proposed and adopted by the School Committee resulted in an unacceptable loss of instruction time.  There is a simple, inexpensive solution that can bring our children back to school now: Extend remote livestream to hybrid livestream in days.  

Our proposal (by Sheryl Grace YouTube) is that teachers can livestream classes to all remote students so that both the in-person and remote students are learning together. Technically, this is no different than the Google Classes offered in the remote environment – teachers are using technology to teach their classes and they continue to do so. This approach has significant upside for both the students and teachers. Students are able to attend class in-person – they can see their peers and their teachers. They are in a more traditional school environment. Teachers can more clearly see their classes – what is working and what may need further explanation. And both groups are able to share an energy that cannot be transmitted online. Because the classes are live-streamed, teachers can avoid developing hours of asynchronous learning content. This model does not require months of meetings – it has been implemented by our fellow Middlesex County schools – it is working and it is ready for immediate adoption in Belmont.    

In a surprising reversal of the previous school committee vote, the committee voted to delay again the start of hybrid in high school to an unspecified time, at best January.  This decision was based on survey results which showed the community’s strong dislike of the proposed hybrid model and were willing to take a delay for a better model.  We agree that the original hybrid model removed too much instruction time, but do not agree that we need months to fix it.  Instead of looking to surrounding communities – many of which have brought their high school students back to school – the school committee decided to implement a task force with the goal of reopening in January – almost a full year after our schools were shut down.   

A number of public schools have implemented a more comprehensive hybrid plan than BPS. The delay of Belmont hybrid affords us the opportunity to “copy&paste” rather than reinventing the wheel. Key to all these hybrid models is live streaming that maximizes in person learning and instructional time, while maximizing teacher safety by allowing those teachers who require it to teach from home. Some of us have implemented live streaming in our classrooms using solutions that are within the abilities of teachers, as well as the financial and technical support available in the district. Reducing instructional time is burdensome to teachers as it requires them to retool their lesson plans and curriculum. As teachers get visual feedback from students attending in-person, they are able to be more effective for the remote students as well. This is a solution where everyone wins.  

The fear that drives school closures is understandable, but may also be exaggerated. In the past week, the infection rate among approximately 450,000 students and 75,000 teachers attending classes in person in Massachusetts was 0.029 percent and 0.09 percent respectively.  The rate during the same period was similar to Massachusetts’ population at large and supports numerous studies that conclude that schools are not a vector of infection. A report in New York Times of COVID-19 infections in New York City public schools suggests that the risks in schools may be exaggerated.

Remote learning has many failings and asynchronous learning will only exacerbate the outcomes. In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, Prof. Joseph Allen, the lead author of Harvard’s T. H. Chan report, argues that remote learning is leading to a new phenomenon of “virtual dropouts” that will have lasting impact on children’s outcomes. “[W]e have virtual dropouts. We have major school districts in the U.S. where a third of the kids are not logging in every day.” The “virtual dropout” and lack of engagement is evident in Belmont High School which led the school principal to abruptly mandate students to turn the cameras on during class time.

We propose that Belmont adopt a tried and true hybrid plan now. This gets our students back to school while preserving their instruction time. It makes the jobs of our teachers easier and it does not cost the district much, if any, money. We can proceed with the task force to improve on this plan – but there is no reason to wait months when we have the answer. Time is of the essence for our children – we need to act now while the health metrics are good. 

Jamal Carlos Saeh, Sheryl Grace, Danielle Lemack, Larry Schmidt, Christine McLaughlin, Martin Zwierlein, Anja Genia Meichsner, Patrick Whittemore, Karl Ivester, Maíra Rejane Marques Samary, Heather Ivester, Colleen Doherty-Minicozzi, Laurie Manjikian, Jane MacKinnon, Stephanie Hovsepian, Chris McLaughlin, Maysoun Shomali, Jill Callanan, Elizabeth Woo, Michael Callanan, Mikhail Zaslavskiy, Beth Halloran, Laura French, Ron Creamer, Nancy Quinn, Julie Meringer, Jacqueline Agular, Patrick J Murphy, David Thesmar, Fleur Thesmar, Olga Shyshko, Tamara Kefeyan, Katherine Hawko, Tim Halloran, Joe Quinn, Judy Dacey, Jennifer G. Ausrotas, Ray Ausrotas

Air Flow Data ‘Discrepancies’ Sends Belmont Schools Back To Remote Learning

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Photo: Descrepancies in an Excel spreadsheet caused Belmont schools to go remote this week

A critical report used to determine the safety of Belmont school buildings to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic was revealed this week to be riddled with miscalculations forcing the School District to shut down in-school hybrid learning for kindergarteners and elementary students and delay the start of the hybrid model for middle and high school students.

According to an email after the Tuesday, Oct. 20 School Committee meeting, Belmont Superintendent John Phelan announced that grades “PreK to 12 will remain home and pivot back to remote learning on Wednesday, Oct. 21 through Friday, Oct 23.”

During the three-day closure, the town’s Facilities Department will be “reallocating and reprogramming” as well as increasing the number of air exchange equipment so rooms will meet the minimum air flow standards set by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to allow learning to safely take place, said Phelan.

Phelan said he will issue a progress report to the community at noon, Friday, Oct. 23. “We do not anticipate this pivot to remote learning will be extended past this week,” said Phelan.

The closure of Belmont schools has delayed the start of hybrid classes at the Chenery Middle School that was scheduled to start on Oct. 22. The start of the hybrid model for Belmont High School has been halted indefinately due to a vote of the School Committee later in the meeting.

Early in the summer when standards were being discussed during the creation of the four phased , air exchange was one of the pillars of the safety protocal – along with community level of COVID-19 infection determined by state data – the district would use to determine when to move from remote learning to hybrid and finally in-class instruction.

Initial airflow data collected and calculated in September by Bala Consulting Engineers – hired this summer to inform the Belmont School District on the air exchange rate in the district’s six school buildings – found that the majority of rooms had passed the standards set by the Chan School and guidelines from the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Steven Dorrance, director of facilities in Belmont, said Bala was hired by Belmont “on a rather urgent basis” in August when they were asked to produce air exchange assessments “under a very, very short time frame.”

An explanation of air exchange rate and how to calculate it from the Harvard T. H. Chan School can be found here.

With preliminary data in hand “which we believed in good faith was representative, accurate and through,” the decision was made to move forward in placing students in classrooms which were equiped with “wonderful air purification technology.”

But when a more detailed data report was released this week and reveiwed by school principals and the town, “we had some surprises,” said Dorrance, noting “discrepancies” between the first and second groups of figures.

Keith Parta, the mechanical department manager in Bala’s Boston office, acknowledged there were differences between the two data sets. Digging deeper into the numbers, Parta discovered there was a “cell problem in the Excel” referring to the Microsoft spreadsheet software, “and it was entirely on us.”

While calculating the air exchange rate is fairly easy to do – there are online air change calculators – Parta said the error resulted during the process of “layering in additional mitigation strategies” into the data cells. Those mitigation actions included changes to the air flow rate by, for example, opening a window three inches. This required introducing a multiplier to the data cell to calculate the new rate.

“I don’t believe we got the multiplier correct for the windows,” said Parta. With layers of incorrect mitigation data, the calculation for the number of fan filters required for each room to generate the correct air flow was flawed.

“It’s very easy for even a seasoned veteran to … look at [a spreadsheet] and say ‘hey, this data set looks consistant but upon further review you have to say to yourself with that inner voice … something is wrong here,” said Parta.

The error likely occurred during what Parta called his firm’s “mad dash” as it was conducting testing at 62 school districts during August. Just in analyzing the Belmont district, “there are hundreds if not thousands of cells” that need to be inputed.

In addition, Parta said a “major misstep” was what he discribed as neglecting to perform a “scrub” in which Bala and the town would review seperately the results before meeting for a combined appraisal of the data.

Saying that he has made a 1,000 mistakes in his lifetime, “the more important thing is that we catch [the mistake], we fix it and we move on because that is the only way we can proceed,” Parta said.

The result of the new data is “there are some rooms that clearly have to come offline because we really don’t have any incoming or free air to work with,” said Dorrance, with other rooms that will need to be “flagged” such as “tiny” interior rooms with just one door to obtain pass through air.

Andrea Prestwich, the school committee’s chair, noted that those newly identified rooms are not classrooms or spaces that children are taught.

Because there continues to be “some concerns about the report” the third district-wide analysis will be conducted over the three day shut down. Parta said there should be only minor improvements with the third reports over that of the second. Dorrance said the town’s confidence level in the coming “final” report will be at “110 percent” when it is released in a subsequant meeting.

“As we move through this process to continue to provide a safe environment for all students and staff, we thank you for patience for this unexpected schedule change. We understand the impact these changes have on families, work schedules, and childcare, and we regret the inconvenience,” said Phelan.

‘Stop!’ Parents Group Push School Committee To Halt High School Hybrid Model

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A group of parents of Belmont High School students is trying to slam the brakes on the transition from remote to hybrid learning just two days before it is to occur.

The hastedly assembled group will present the results of a survey they created to the Belmont School Committee at its Tuesday, Oct. 20 meeting showing overwhelming opposition to the committee’s vote last week to move high school students into a hybrid instructional model.

In a statement that is accompanying the survey, the group – self described as “Concerned Parents” – says the upshot of the results is ‘[t]he community, that elected you to represent their interests, has spoken loud and clear – stop the move to this model of hybrid for our High School students.”

“We are providing you with the voice of the community who wants to work together to help pave a path forward. We are asking the school administration to take this feedback into serious consideration and reshape their approach,” the parents group stated.

The group’s objective is for the school committee to nullify its earlier vote and return students to the current remote model while creating an ad hoc partnership of parents and the district administration to return back to square one and reconstruct the hybrid model from scratch in the matter of weeks.

“Our goal is to provide insights and ideas to work with the school committee and the administration on paving a path forward, together with the community. We want to make this work and support our students, teachers and school administrators in this unprecedented time,” says the parent’s statement.

The statement’s signatories include Charlie Conroy, Wendy Conroy, Heather Barr, Christa Bauge, Rachel Bruno, David Palmer, Heather Rubeski and Clare Crawford.

The numbers from polls speak volumes, according to the parents: 88 percent of more than 600 respondants do not support the proposed hybrid model for the High School, and a near equal 87 percent are asking the School Committee to nullify their earlier vote and return to a remote model.

Part of the survey has also been dedicated to the views of students which the group contends is a “critical component that has been missing from this discussion so far.” More than 35 percent of survey respondents “overwhelmingly reject this model of [h]ybrid also,” reads the statement.

The parents group is laying forth two “requests” before the six member School Committee and the district administration:

  • Present the survey results to the School Committee on Tuesday [Oct. 20], “so the voice of the community, including the students at BHS, can be heard and be part of the public record.”
  • The School Committee will acknowledge the results at its Oct. 20 meeting and in a formal vote succeed to the group’s belief that “at this time, it is necessary to pause the transition to Hybrid until a better plan can be determined.”

The School Committee voted 5-1, to begin the hybrid instruction model on Thursday, Oct. 22. During the discussion before the vote, nearly all the members agreed that the approved hybrid plan was lacking in student instructional time.

Yet the committee members acknowledged at the Oct. 13 meeting there is an insufficiant number of personnel and staff needed to revamp or rebuild a new hybrid plan in the next few weeks. In addition, the district faces pressure from the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to begin in-school learning.

Rather than start over, Belmont School Superintendent John Phelan suggested the high school continues into the hybrid while collecting feedback and suggestions from educators, students and parents. That information would then be the foundation for alterations to the plan after the completion of the first two terms of the school year early in the new year.

The parents group also started its own communications with DESE officials to reaffirm long-standing department policy that while the state can “strongly recommends the implementation of an in-person model of instruction” a move from remote to hybrid models “is ultimately a local decision.”

“Given there is no mandate to move to a hybrid model, the fact that DESE has highlighted that our local school committee has the authority to make this choice, and the fact that our survey shows there is not community support for a transition to the proposed Belmont High School hybrid model, we are highlighting that the school committee has the authority, responsibility and community support to stop this move now,” said the group.

The school committee should act quickly and decisively in this regard and stop the transition to Hybrid for the High school that is scheduled for October 22nd. We have collected valuable community comments about what is expected in a Hybrid mode for the High School.