Fox Chapel Area School Board approves 5-day in-person class for elementary students

Fox Chapel Area elementary students will return to the classroom full-time in November, while those in middle school and high school will continue hybrid and remote learning models for at least the next nine weeks.

The school board on Monday night voted 7-2 to give kindergarten through fifth-grade students the option to head back to in-person instruction Nov. 5.

Board members Vanessa Lynch and Marybeth Dadd opposed.

Virtual programs will remain available for elementary families who choose those options.

“I was looking for a step between hybrid and moving to five days,” Dadd said. “Filling up our buildings and having classrooms where we won’t be able to achieve 6 feet of distance is problematic.

“We also have to be responsible for the adults in those buildings.”

Superintendent Mary Catherine Reljac said there have been 69 students and 40 staff members from public schools across Allegheny County diagnosed with covid-19.

Fox Chapel Area has seen 12 cases, she said.

“Those seemed to be the result of social events and family transmission,” Reljac said.

“We’ve been able to minimize and eliminate other cases because those who are feeling ill stayed home.”

Reljac said mitigation practices will continue at all buildings, and that it’s especially important now that more students will be returning to the elementaries in a few weeks.

She said families who choose the virtual synchronous model may be asked to adjust class schedules in order to use elementary staff flexibly. Virtual learners may be required to start their day as early as 8 a.m., she said.

Reljac said special classes, such as gym and art, will be increased with the return to the building.

Resident Greg Dolan questioned the board’s decision not to bring all students back full-time and called the move cowardly.

Reljac said the administrative team is working to add more days soon at Dorseyville Middle School, as that is “the next logical step.”

“We looked at adding Wednesdays but the level of change that would be required was very difficult,” she said. “We really only have one day to play with or we start to mix the cohorts and we didn’t know if it would give us the same kind of response that we want.”

Board member Adam Goode acknowledged that having elementary students return on a full-time basis will increase the chance of virus transmission but said those buildings have a vulnerable enrollment “who need to be in the building more than they are and this is the way to do it.”

He believes the risks are manageable, he said.

Board member Eric Hamilton questioned the challenges of adding in-person instruction time at the high school and wondered how to address those obstacles.

Reljac said her team advised a pause on the full-time return for high school students because of larger class sizes, block scheduling and transmission rates of older students.

“No matter what decision we make, it will be wrong for some people,” Reljac said.

“I fully expect we will need to change the instructional models again in the future but there is no crystal ball and we are trying to make the best decisions as we go.”