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With the beginning of the school year only -- theoretically -- a month and a half away, school administrators are scrambling in what, until this week, was a state guidance vacuum to figure out how the Lansing schools may open.  Lansing School Superintendent Chris Pettograsso told Board of Education members on July 7th that there had been "zero guidance from both the State Education Department and the Governor's Office" at the time of the school board meeting.  She said her administration is looking at plans developed by colleges and universities, and other states that had already filed their plans for school reopening, as well as consulting with other superintendents in the region.  And while the the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) did issue guidance Monday, it does not address all the questions Lansing school administrators need to have answered.  Pettograsso said that whatever happens, the District's first priority is the safety of students and employees.

"We're really trying to be tight up front with making sure everybody's safe and healthy," she said. "Right now some of the guidance that's come out does say if a student has a fever, they do have to stay home for two weeks. If a teacher has a fever, they have to quarantine. So we will be doing things like temperature checking daily in the classrooms."

On July 10th Cuomo said that state guidance for school opening would be forthcoming during the first week of August, which Pettograsso said would not allow enough time to finish preparing before the beginning of the school year.  On Monday Cuomo did announce that the NYSDOH had released what he called data-driven interim guidance for in-person instruction at pre-K to grade 12.  The guidance document addresses masks/PPE, social distancing, cohort structures, restructuring space to maximize in-class, instruction, transportation, food service, aftercare and extracurriculars, screening, tracing, and cleaning and disinfecting.  Districts in Phase IV or the state reopening plan must submit their reopening plan to the state, as well as an affirmation that they have read and understood the guidance.

The NYSDOH guidance addresses health practices, but it doesn't address other matters, like curriculum, testing, required number of school days, and a myriad of other issues.  This year Regents Exams were waived for Regents Degree candidates, but there has been no guidance on whether they will be reinstated for the coming school year.  Pettograsso said that all state testing may or may not be required and there is a myriad of other such questions. 

"Do we have the same requirements for graduation? Are we doing Regents testing? Are we looking at New York State ELA, math and science testing, ELL testing -- all those types of things, we're not going to know for some time," she said.

There are some things we do know, or we think we know.  Online learning will continue to be a major factor even when the school buildings are open for classes.  It appears that half Lansing's students will attend two days a week and the rest on a different two days, labeled A Days and B Days.  Students will attend school online on days they are not physically in the classroom.  And everyone will be tested for COVID-19.

"We are going to do some serious tracing throughout the school year of students and employees," Pettograsso said. "We will be looking at having very limited mobility at the elementary level and looking at cross paths as students move at the middle and high school level. Say there's around 320 people at the students at the at the middle school. Only half of them will be attending on a daily basis. We will look at staggering when they change classes, so we know who's where and when, so that will be happening. So instead of just insisting on quarterly testing, we would use the tracing to determine who needs to be tested after the initial testing."

She explained that school officials are looking at  at different guidelines and talking to the school attorneys regarding COVID testing.

"It's likely that we'll be able to have every employee tested prior to starting school. I'm working with Cayuga Medical Center on, on how and where we could do that.If we have enough people they'll come here and do it. And then we'd have to see what that would look like after that," she said.

In fact, the State's blessing for schools remaining open may be revoked depending on the daily infection rate, which could potentially send teachers and administrators scrambling to return to the all-online model they patched together for the end of the 2019-2020 school year.

"Schools in a region can reopen if that region is in Phase IV of reopening and if its daily infection rate remains below 5 percent or lower using a 14-day average since unPAUSE was lifted. Schools will close if the regional infection rate rises above 9 percent, using a 7-day average, after August 1. New York State will make the formula determination during the week of August 1 to 7," Cuomo announced Monday.

Most Lansing students were able to continue their studies over the Internet over the past few months, and that won't change until schools finally get entirely back to normal.  Pettograsso said there were hardly any families who couldn't get online.

"We actually narrowed it down to about five students that were having difficulty (getting Internet)," Pettograsso said. "We got hot spots for students. The nice piece is we are able to do blended learning... we can put everything up on the computer ahead of time and send it home daily with the students. So really we were able to, to work with almost every family to make sure that they received it.  There are some families that said, 'no, thank you. We do not want Internet service or virtual learning in that manner'.  So we provided hard copies of things."

TST BOCES classes may not be possible for some students, especially hands-on trade classes.  Extracurricular activities will be almost entirely eliminated at first, and contact sports are off the table for now. 

"I would say the way that everything's looking right now there's will be very few, if any, extracurriculars," Pettograsso said. "I'm looking at chorus, large band... it may be that some of those extra curriculars are virtual on those off days.  But those are the things that you're trying to get in to connect and continue to provide some learning and to provide some asynchronous opportunities for lessons. So those are some things that we're looking at, but I'm not feeling very optimistic about extracurriculars. I'd rather start tight and add them as we go, as it feels safe, as we have more guidance and just be, just have a structure set up where it be easy to say, okay, we're starting band now. Okay. We're starting this now, in a staggered way so we're able to trace and keep everybody safe, safe, and healthy."

So it looks like administrators are favoring a 'blended attendance 'plan where students will attend in person two days a week and online two other days, sanitizing the buildings will take place on the non-attendance day.  But Pettograsso noted that some parents may not feel safe sending their children to the school campus at all.  She said that would prove to be a hardship for the District.

"Bigger districts that you see in other states are giving (parents) a choice because they'll have, let's say, three teachers teaching just ninth grade English.," she said.  "So one of those teachers is just the virtual teacher. One of them is in person. And one might be the blended learning, you know? So they have those opportunities. We do not. So even if it is one of the options for us, we will not be looking at providing it as a choice."

Presumably parents would then have to do whatever it is you do to home school your children.  And it is not just a matter of students not attending.  There may be employees who don't want to attend in person, especially older employees who are in a higher-risk demographic.  Pettograsso said she might find herself in the position of not being able to provide a teacher, especially substitute teachers, many of whom are older, retired teachers for whom it would be less safe.

"We'll be working closely with all of our unions and faculty and staff to make sure that we're supporting everybody," she said. "And I'm going to be, we will be as transparent with families as possible because on any given day, we may have to say, you know, elementary school doesn't have school today because of not having people available. Most many of our substitutes are retired and maybe considered at risk."

Families who hoped things would be back to normal by the time school reopens will be disappointed.  With their children physically going to school only two days a week at best, working parents will continue to struggle with childcare.  Pettograsso said the District is hoping to be able to provide childcare for elementary school children, but added the District will not be able to provide transportation, and that some childcare might be in locations other than the school campus.

With state guidance and mandates and infection rates changing every day, putting together a coherent picture of what school will look like is like playing 'Whack-a-mole' for administrators.  On top of all the health and education questions there are money questions.  Who will pay for all this COVID-19 testing?  The NYSDOH guidance mandates that while students may bring their own face masks, the schools must provide masks to them at no cost if they don't bring their own.  There will be additional costs for sanitizing supplies and the labor needed to repeatedly sanitize school buildings.

Additionally there an expected significant reduction in school revenue because the state has more than doubled its deficit during the pandemic crisis, and is evaluating how much school aid will be released on a periodic basis, making it impossible for district officials to plan.  Anticipating that, District officials released a list of anticipated program cuts at the end of April, before the budget vote.

So more expenses, less money to pay for them.

Pettograsso said she hoped to release a plan this week so that parents and others impacted by the schools can start planning.  But parents, as well as school officials must  be prepared to be flexible, because of the moving target of what the State allows and forbids.

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