By L. Parsons Winslow Unified School District (WUSD) Superintendent Kathryn Zanin held a series of community meetings last week through video conferencing to address how the district will be opening the school year. As Zanin outlined her plan to reopen Winslow schools on Aug. 3, it was noted that all Arizona schools will be online-only until at least Aug. 17 in accordance with an executive order from Governor Doug Ducey. In light of that order, WUSD has planned to provide laptops to each student in the district. As of press time, there are not enough computers to provide one per student. Zanin said, “Right now, we are looking at a one to two ratio for Chromebooks. So, if you have two students in the home, they will share. We are hoping to have enough for every student in the district before we begin.” She encouraged parents to use the computers provided as they will be pre-programmed with safety software as well as the needed applications for instruction. Online learning will be across the district. Once schools reopen, whether that is the Aug. 17 date or some other, “Moving target,” as Zanin refers to it, students will have the option of remaining online or attending classes in person. “We are looking at this in two phases,” she said, “Phase One is distance learning. We wanted to stay with the Aug. 3 start date because we wanted to stay with the calendar. If we started 10 days later, then we would take away fall break, spring break and other breaks during the year. We didn’t want to interrupt families and what they may already have planned, especially trips.” Other districts statewide have opted to delay their in-person start dates until October because of the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic in Arizona. Blue Ridge and Flagstaff are among those who have made announcements to that effect. Zanin was asked about whether or not the district was considering delaying Winslow’s in-person reopening. She responded, “Again, that’s Flagstaff, that’s Phoenix Unified, that’s Mesa. That’s their decision as a district. Are we considering that? You know, again, there’s always discussion and tomorrow I will be meeting with some local health professionals: Dr. Tom Greenwood, Dr. Ditto, the head nurse for the (Little Colorado Medical Center). So, you know, I’m not discounting it. But at the same time, I have 50 percent of my families that are saying right now “we need to be back in school” and we have 50 percent of our families saying “nope, I want to stay online. Phase Two, according to Zanin, is the transition to in-person learning and traditional five days a week schooling. “The governor has said in his executive order that we have to have the school open five days a week for any and all families that might need that. We have to make sure we are accounting for the required number of hours for us to be in school.” She continued, “Our elementary school students will have an easier time transitioning from online to traditional schooling. The one thing we are going to ask of our junior high and high school students is that if you go online distance learning, we are going to ask that you stay online for the entire semester. This is because of the standards that we teach, we want to make sure we have that continuity of learning.” Students at Winslow Junior High and Winslow High School will attend an online program through Arizona State University. Families are being instructed to contact the high school to make sure they are registered with the ASU program. At this time, it is unknown if the program will offer credit recovery for high school students who may need that option. Classes such as music, art, physical education and industrial arts that require hands-on interaction are still being developed. Zanin did say that students enrolled in NAVIT (Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology) and TALON (Technology to Advance Learning Outcomes at Northland) programs will still be able to participate in those. Elementary school children will be provided with instruction from their classroom teachers through a learning management program called Schoolology that will be accessible through the district provided computers. “Teachers are now in the process of developing live presentations for their students. We believe that teachers are the backbone of our district and it was vital that their voice was in that decision-making process on how the school will look, the types of activities students will do and the lesson planning that goes in to that.” Safety precautions are necessary to consider in the reopening of schools. “We are going to take student temperatures twice a day. A fever is considered to be 99.5 degrees or higher. We will also ask screening questions to make sure they are healthy and ready to go to school. There will be hand sanitizer in every classroom. We are going to ask students to wear masks in communal areas and hallways and busses. If they don’t have a mask, we are going to provide that. We are going to ask students to practice social distancing. We have called parents to get a count to be able to set up our classrooms to make sure we have the full distancing available. “After our bus drivers get off their routes, they will come to each school site and clean all high touched areas and support cafeteria staff and clean up and sanitize those areas. Refillable water bottle station with district provided water bottles will be available. We are working to install a type of plexiglass dividers because we know the little ones wearing masks all day will be hard. So, there will be times where they can take them off because the shields will be there.” Zannin stated that all of the school sites have a health technician and when asked by a parent, “How many nurses will the district hire to help keep kids safe?” Zanin’s response was, “Nurses don’t want to work for public schools. At this point we haven’t looked in to hiring any nurses.” Class sizes are always a topic of discussion in the public-school setting. In this unprecedented time, those numbers are also important when speaking of safety. Zanin said, “We are looking at class sizes of about one (teacher) to 10 (students), or one to 12, the highest at the junior high and high school levels. If we were to have a hybrid model of schooling this year, we would see those drop to a one to five or six. That is not an efficient use of our resources or our teachers time.” Registration for classes is currently in progress. Students who are coming in to the district must register as well as kindergarten students. To register, visit Bonnie Brennan Elementary School, located at 100 Cochise Drive, to receive a packet. Once that packet is completed, parents should return it to Bonnie Brennan. This is the case no matter what school the student will attend. Historically, Winslow has taken students from other areas as part of the open enrollment capabilities of Arizona schools. This year, according to Zanin, that is not the case. “Due to COVID-19, social distancing, commitments of attendance and capacity of classrooms, we are not currently accepting open-enrollment. All students who have applied will be placed on a waitlist. WUSD is working closely with the residential hall leadership to identify students who may live in the dorm and attend school in Winslow when the waitlist opens. I will be presenting to the board on Wednesday (July 22) the process and procedure that will be used to select students on the waitlist to attend.” It is unclear what effect that will have on state funding for WUSD. It is also unclear what ramifications that decision will have on athletic programs for Winslow. Zanin stated repeatedly in the open forums that she has no intention of cancelling the athletic seasons. Two of the 15 meetings are available on the Winslow Unified School District Facebook page and questions from families are still being accepted. To submit questions, visit www.wusd1.org.
