New COVID surge is forcing Hampton Roads schools into hard choices

As staff and student absences continue to mount during the latest COVID-19 surge, no local school system plans to return entirely to online learning — but all are trying to figure out how to proceed should the situation become dire enough.

So far, one common solution is putting individual classes or schools into virtual learning for a short amount of time. Others have deployed school administrators to fill in for teachers who are out.

On Tuesday, Virginia Beach school officials presented board members with a second plan to keep students in-person because transmission rates are lower in schools compared with community transmission, closing schools could lead to additional learning loss and the strain school closures could put on families and a child’s well-being.

Under the new plan, the district implemented a three-tiered strategy to manage staffing shortages and keep schools open five days a week.

At the first level, schools will call on instructional support staff — library media specialists, literacy coaches, teacher assistants, among others — to fill vacancies that day. And if schools need additional support, the district will utilize 50 staff members from the central office for level two and 100 employees in level three.

Virginia Beach has been working with the local health department since the beginning of the school year to decide whether a class should quarantine or a school should close. Under the district’s quarantine and closure plan, individual schools could close depending on the size of an outbreak or the level of staffing shortages. The district could shift to virtual learning if state or local public health officials recommend doing so, or after an executive order is issued.

But Superintendent Aaron Spence told board members each division has different plans on how to address school closures depending on their locality’s data and needs.

As of Wednesday, all Virginia localities are considered areas with high transmission, according the state health department’s website. And a University of Virginia COVID-19 model recently predicted cases in Hampton Roads could peak later this month.

[ ‘The perfect storm’: Hampton Roads teachers, students suffer under pressures brought on by COVID-19 ]

Chesapeake and Suffolk are the region’s only public school systems to close schools due to transmission and absentee rates. Six schools are working remotely this week in Chesapeake and three Suffolk elementary schools — Kilby Shores, Mack Benn, Jr. and Southwestern — will go virtual next week.

“As our quarantine numbers continue to rise, remaining in in-person learning is simply a risk that we can no longer continue to take in certain schools,” Suffolk Superintendent John Gordon III wrote to parents Wednesday, saying the decision is based on the size of an outbreak, the number of staff absentees and class closures. The district has over 1,000 students quarantined and an “overwhelming” number of staff quarantined, the letter said.

Newport News school officials notified parents Wednesday that their child’s school could close depending on a high staff absentee rate and high transmission. In Hampton, school officials will implement contingency plans for inclement weather if one or more schools need to make the shift. And some divisions still have plans in the works since staffing conditions, positivity rates and student attendance can vary at different schools.

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Norfolk Public Schools has plans for when students are quarantined, but it is unclear whether it has plans to address staffing issues.

York County moved four Yorktown Elementary classrooms online because of absentee rates among staff and students. The division makes those decisions on a case-by-case basis, and in-person instruction will resume when teachers and students can return from quarantining or isolation.

“The division evaluates multiple data points on a daily basis and meets with individual principals to assess needs in their buildings to determine whether other options can be employed prior to shifting to virtual learning, as our priority remains providing in-person learning for students,” a district spokesperson wrote in an email to The Virginian-Pilot. But there is no specific threshold that could make a school revert to virtual learning.

Since students returned after the holidays, coupled with the recent spike in cases, public school systems in New York and Chicago have set parameters that would trigger school closure.

Under a new policy, local public health officials will investigate targeted New York City schools if transmission within the building exceeds its respective community spread, according a report from Chalkbeat New York. In Chicago, the district’s teachers union is expected to vote on a proposal from the school division that says a school would switch to remote learning if student or teacher absentee rates reach a specific percentage.

Sierra Jenkins, 229-462-8896, sierra.jenkins@virginiamedia.com