Students return to South Side

The community had a chance to learn about the Rockville Centre School District’s plan to bring students back into classrooms full time at a reopening forum last week at South Side High School. The school administration and Board of Education organized the meeting ahead of the staggered return of students to the high school and middle school, which began on Monday.

“We worked extremely hard to get to this point,” said Superintendent June Chang, noting that conversations about bringing students back began in July. Elementary students began full-time in-person instruction in September, while secondary-level students operated on a hybrid schedule. Chang said that administrators kept an eye on Covid-19 infection rates, which increased over the holidays and after the December break. “As we looked at what was happening over February break . . . we thought we might be able to get everybody in before spring break,” he said.

The three main factors in the decision to bring seniors and eighth-graders back full time on Monday, Chang said, included a decline in infection rates, the delivery of desk barriers and a vaccination clinic partnership with Mount Sinai South Nassau for district teachers. Chang said he discussed the plans with South Side High Principal John Murphy and South Side Middle School Principal Shelagh McGinn, both of whom gave an overview of the transition at the March 3 meeting. The plan is to have freshmen and sixth-graders return to the buildings full time on March 15, while seventh- 10th- and 11th-graders return on March 22. Students will still have a fully remote option.

At the high school, Murphy said, the first step was to outfit each classroom with desks, with the assumption that all students would return. The next step was to retrofit the desks with barriers. He said that, weather permitting, students will be encouraged to head outdoors for phys. ed., performance groups and to eat lunch. For the re-entry period, Murphy said, lockers will remain unused in order to prevent student congregations, and there will be two-way traffic in the halls. The procedures will be revisited in mid-April, he said.

McGinn said that desks have been returned to classrooms to accommodate more students, with barriers in place. In most rooms, shelving and teachers’ desks have been removed to create more space. In the cafeteria, tables will have plastic dividers, which will allow students to look at one another while they eat. In warmer weather, McGinn said, students will have the option to go outside for lunch.

Frank Van Zant, president of the Rockville Centre Teachers’ Association, spoke on behalf of the union and said that teachers were preparing for the re-entry plan. “We ask the community to maintain safe practices,” he said, encouraging people to reconsider any plans for holding or attending large gatherings. “The pandemic is not over.”

A number of parents spoke as well, asking for details on the district’s contact tracing procedures and for specifics on in-school transmission. Julie Canty asked for clarification on how a student is deemed a close contact and required to quarantine.

The district’s medical director, Tara Algerio-Vento, outlined the contact tracing process. She said that she reviews every case with the Nassau County Department of Health, which provides guidance on how the district should quarantine students. Then she discusses the “operational needs of the school” with administrators, and the team makes a decision on whether a class needs to be quarantined or a building needs to be closed. Algerio-Vento added that the names of those in quarantine are then submitted to the Health Department, which does its own contact tracing.

Marleen Maccone thanked the board and administration for their reopening efforts, and said she believed that Algerio-Vento was “already overtaxed, overburdened in her role as medical director, head nurse at the high school, and as appointed pandemic response director.” “While I don’t doubt that she is a capable person,” Maccone said, “I’m at a loss as to how a single individual is expected to carry out this monumental task.”

She asked whether outside experts have been consulted to ensure that the district is taking the right approach. “We have spoken with experts,” Chang said. “We use resources where we can, and we have leaned heavily on Ingerman Smith” — the district’s law firm— “for legal advice. We have capable people who have been through this from the beginning.”