Schools that stayed open: Lessons from St. Charles Parish

The SCPPS Strong Start 2020 plan had two goals for its back-to-school strategy.

As the dust begins to settle after the dramatic first few months of 2021, school districts across the country are continuing their efforts to reopen schools safely. With a new secretary of education in place and an administration that actually believes in science, planning, and prevention, educators and students have reason to be hopeful, even if the road ahead is still long and hard.

As we move forward into what we hope will be a better time, it’s important to look back at how states and school districts have managed the last year to see what we can learn. In the age of COVID, states and school districts received little or no guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, leaving them to devise their own game plans. Some states (Iowa, Texas, Arkansas, and Florida) ordered schools to open, but the vast majority left it to districts to decide. The trials and tribulations of full-time virtual learning have been well documented. But what’s happening in school districts that have been open for in-person learning? To help me understand the decision making and planning that go into providing in-person instruction every day, even as a pandemic rages on, I spoke with Dr. Ken Oertling, superintendent of St. Charles Parish Public Schools (SCPPS) in Louisiana.

The plan in St. Charles Parish

St. Charles Parish is located outside of New Orleans and serves just under 10,000 students in its nine elementary schools, four middle schools, and two high schools. Oertling tells me the community tends to be highly supportive of the local schools, with 95% of families choosing to send their children to SCPPS. Since August 2020, the district has been providing in-person instruction every day for preK-8 students, while the two high schools have used a hybrid schedule, with half of the students attending on alternate days.

Oertling said the decision to welcome students and teachers back to school buildings was not taken lightly. Starting in April 2020, district leaders worked closely with the Louisiana Department of Health, the governor’s office, and the local emergency operations center to develop a plan of action. National organizations like The School Superintendents Association (AASA), the Eastern States Consortium, and a group of regional superintendents also provided support.

63The SCPPS Strong Start 2020 plan was grounded in the recommendations of the Louisiana Department of Health but also included input from employees, students, and families. The health department provided the district with a regulatory safety framework that included expectations for hygiene, distancing, cleaning, and so on. The Louisiana Department of Education then built on that framework, developing its own guidelines with help from multiple committees of school system leaders, parents, government officials, and relevant staff. The idea was to define core safety standards while being flexible enough to allow each district to modify the guidelines to meet their schools’ specific needs.

Oertling said the SCPPS plan focused on two goals. The first was to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 to the maximum extent possible by limiting movement and interaction, maximizing space, and focusing intensely on cleaning, disinfecting, and personal hygiene. However, figuring out the logistics of this or any other health and safety framework is like solving a math equation on steroids. For instance, school leaders needed to minimize student movement through hallways, change their bus schedules, reduce outside staff support, factor in time for cleaning and handwashing, and consider countless other details. According to Oertling, though, consistent communication helped make the job a bit easier. Using email, phone calls, and social media to share information and invite feedback, the district tried to be as transparent as possible, explaining every step to students, teachers, and families, while reassuring them about the science behind their safety measures.

The second goal was to ensure that all students receive the best possible classroom instruction, based on current health guidance and operational feasibility. The fact that all SCPPS students had access to Chromebooks gave the district a big advantage during the shift to remote instruction, and Oertling credits his teachers and staff for using the technology to make “amazing accommodations” for students. But Oertling acknowledges that virtual instruction had a rocky start in the district, which had never run any kind of virtual learning program. When in-person school resumed in the fall, about 20% of students chose to attend school virtually full time, and meeting their needs was challenging. For grades preK-5, the district quickly developed a program in which virtual learners learned from their own teachers, but for grades 6-12, students used a state-approved computer-based program with self-paced online learning, complemented by teacher support. About half of the students (1,000) that initially chose to attend school virtually returned to in-person instruction in January.

Protecting physical and mental health

Oertling told me that when schools reopened in August 2020, the district experienced cases of COVID exposure almost daily. Any time there was exposure or a case in one of the school buildings, the district alerted faculty, staff, and parents. “Communication and transparency build trust,” said Oertling, “and that trust can help you overcome so many challenges.” The district protocol for potential or actual COVID cases includes contact tracing, immediate isolation followed by quarantining, cleaning and disinfection, and remote teaching or learning. The fact that teachers who were quarantining were still able to teach their classes remotely made a huge difference, said Oertling. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to maintain our day-to-day operations.” Still, he continues to worry that students or teachers will fall seriously ill, or that the schools will have to close because of staffing constraints or a significant rise in nearby cases. He has recorded public service announcements urging community members to wear masks and practice physical distancing, but he acknowledged that he has little influence over local residents. “Sometimes they don’t understand the negative impact their behavior can have on schools.”

In addition to managing all of these physical, operational, and instructional concerns, Oertling also worries about the mental health needs of his students, teachers, and staff. To help respond to pandemic-related stress and anxiety, the district formed a social and emotional support unit to advise similar teams within each school, and a screening tool was used to identify any students and staff who may be struggling. The district then tapped its existing mental health providers, school counselors, and other wraparound services to provide support, and it created “calming rooms” in schools for teachers to decompress and partake in wellness activities.

Looking forward

St. Charles Parish is already well into planning for the new school year. Determined to learn from the challenges of COVID-19, the district created a virtual learning task force that will incorporate the experiences of the last year into a plan for a permanent virtual learning program (something I suspect many districts will be doing). And while social and emotional learning was already a priority for the district, the mental health of students and staff now and in the aftermath of COVID will be a topic of continued focus. “But most important,” Oertling said, “is planning for interventions and supports that will address the learning gaps that have occurred.”

SCPPS will not be alone in their efforts to address learning gaps. A recent study from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company estimated that most students are falling behind academically as a result of COVID-19, with students of color feeling the biggest impact (Dorn et al., 2020). Even when the pandemic finally starts to abate and school districts like SCPPS can begin to operate more normally, the legacy of COVID-19 will still loom large in classrooms across America.

Reference

Dorn, E., Hancock, B., Sarakatsannis, J., & Viruleg, E. (2020, December). COVID-19 and learning loss — disparities grow and students need help. New York, NY: McKinsey & Company.