By SARIT LASCHINSKY

Special to The Press

During their virtual Aug. 19 meeting, Northwestern Lehigh board members heard a presentation on updates to the district health and safety plan.

Superintendent Jennifer Holman said the administration had spent the majority of the summer planning for a traditional five-day model, which was pulled the previous Monday under new information from the state Department of Health.

Holman wanted the public to know the district was disappointed in the timeliness of the information, as the previous health and safety plan was approved July 22, but all available data is used to make the best decisions for students and staff.

Additionally, Holman noted the current hybrid model preserves some in-person instruction for all students - recognizing hardships placed on families by three days of virtual learning.

She said the board had earlier approved items allowing teachers to stream simultaneously from classrooms, keeping students current with their general education classes even when not physically present.

The administration will continue updating the board as school opens and will look at data, spread, possible internal outbreaks and educational options.

“To continue to make the best recommendations and decisions that we can for all our students and all of our staff,” Holman said.

Assistant Superintendent Troy Sosnovik presented the plan updates.

He said since the July 22 approval of the original plan, four additional pieces of state guidance were received addressing school sports, instruction models, COVID-19 case identification and face covering requirements.

Regarding instructional modeling, Aug. 10 the Department of Education and DOH issued guidance based on two public health metrics - incidence rate and the percent positivity of diagnostic testing reported by every county - as well as an early warning monitoring system dashboard which schools use to determine opening models that calculates the rolling seven-day incident and PCR percent positivity rate.

As of Aug. 14, Lehigh County’s incidence rate was 34.8 per 100,000 residents and had a PCR percent incidence rate of 4 percent, and that overall, data showed a “moderate” level of community transmission for the past three weeks.

Sosnovik said with the classification, which requires only one of two metrics be met, the recommended models were blended/hybrid or full-online program for the start of school.

Additionally, Aug. 13 state guidance provided directions for schools in the event of a positive COVID case occurring in a school.

If a case is identified, the administration will work with the DOH to determine quarantine recommendations up to and including closing the building, if necessary.

Closure length varies by level of community transmission and number of cases.

Per a state table during moderate spread, closures of 5-7 days are recommended for two-to-four positive cases and up to 14 days for five or more cases to give time to clean, sanitize and complete contact tracing.

Sosnovik noted there was high potential for the DOH to recommend an entire school shut down with little or no notice for an extended period of time.

In response, Northwestern Lehigh would require all educational staff and students to bring their devices to school and home each day, and recommend families to have child care plans in the event of a closure.

He also emphasized employees, parents and guardians must follow their respective continuum of screening, and to tell contract tracers their relation to the school district when contacted by the DOH to aid in tracing efforts.

Lastly, Sosnovik said PDE and the DOH issued new requirements that students wear face coverings at all times while in school, even when 6 feet of social distancing is possible, with limited exceptions.

These exceptions are when eating and drinking with at least 6 feet of separation, when wearing a face covering creates an unsafe condition to operate equipment or execute tasks, or during mask breaks of no more than 10 minutes with at least 6 feet of distance.

As a result, teachers are no longer permitted to let students take off their face coverings at their desks if all individuals are stationary and 6 feet apart - the majority of classes in the hybrid model - and now are only allowed to permit face covering breaks as described.

Sosnovik said level-appropriate consequences for failure to follow the face covering requirement have been made in each school’s Student Code of Conduct, which families acknowledge at the start of school.

“We firmly believe we are all in this together, and together we will get through this,” Sosnovik concluded, adding strong, continued collaboration and communication with families is key to success in any selected instructional model.

“We still believe the hybrid is the best model to be operating in currently,” Holman said. “We certainly were hopeful we would be able to do traditional.”

She said the district should take the DOH advice and understanding of the coronavirus and community spread and will bring back further information and data based on the local experiences of schools reopening to potentially change their decision in the future.

Board members shared their thoughts on the plan.

Todd Leiser thanked the community’s feedback as several parents called in during the public comment period to voice their dissatisfaction with the hybrid model and its associated drawbacks.

Leiser said in his opinion “looking at the data,” he would not have changed his decision to stick with a traditional opening.

“There’s really no data that I see in the Pennsylvania data, the Lehigh County data that indicates any change in trajectory,” and said he saw most of the significant trends “are in a good direction.”

Secretary John Casciano asked Solicitor Jessica Moyer about potential liability to the district if they proceeded with the full-week model, in case somebody got sick.

Moyer said it was “uncharted territory,” adding while state guidelines were not requirements, if the board wavered, “You are welcoming lawsuits. You are welcoming plaintiff’s attorneys to put forth many theories,” including the district, board or administration ignored DOH guidance.

Additionally, Moyer responded to a question about potential lawsuits related to state acts requiring districts to provide adequate education to students, which Leiser said might not include hybrid learning.

Moyer said the district was “in a tough position” and could still be sued, although they would have a better defense by following guidance.

Board President Willard Dellicker asked about time frames to switch models, noting local COVID data for the district is likely different from Lehigh County as a whole, and currently hybrid learning is projected to continue until the end of the first marking period in November.

Holman said the state recommendations only addressed the level of community spread and model recommendations, not the time frame set by the district as the easiest point to transition between models.

Dellicker wanted to obtain opinions about potentially changing to full in-person instruction in October if numbers change and coronavirus spread appears to be mitigating.

“The unintended consequences of state guidance were causing too much grief and turmoil in the community and a loss of local control by the board,” Dellicker said.

“The planning you have done since June, which has comprehensively covered every aspect of operation in our buildings … all of these things we have put into the plan and then approved by the board, within days are scrapped because of new guidance or recommendations.”

Member James Warfel acknowledged the decision-making would cause hardships, but said the board only had control over actions with regard to the safety of students and staff.

He said the matter was a “no-win situation for everybody … but when the executive officer says to me ‘This is what I think I need to do to provide safety and welfare to students,’ I will make this difficult decision,” adding the best plan would be to be “nimble and pivot” when and where the district can, to proceed with reopening.

Other board members said they preferred the five-day traditional model over hybrid learning.

They also said in-person learning is best compared to online, and voiced their support for reevaluating the district’s case numbers on a constant basis in order to return to a traditional model as soon as possible, and to provide students and families a sense of normalcy and consistency.