SEYMOUR — Seymour school officials walked the Board of Education through its 62-page state-mandated plan for re-opening school in the fall during a virtual meeting Thursday.
Every school district in Connecticut has to turn in a plan by today (Friday, July 24). Each school district was tasked with coming up with plans for three scenarios, as described by The Hartford Courant:
“a full reopening, a hybrid model where students do both in-person and online learning and an online learning only option in case the state sees a surge in coronavirus cases. Gov. Ned Lamont said a final decision will be made next month about how education will look in the coming fall, depending on Connecticut’s coronavirus metrics.“
The process under which the Seymour school district created its plan was criticized Thursday. There was not a public portion session during the meeting, which was held on Zoom and live-streamed to YouTube. Anyone wishing to comment had to email the district in advance.
Only seven people submitted comments that were read at the start of the meeting.
A few residents said the committee that came up with the plan had no input from parents. They also complained about a lack of information from the district.
Superintendent Michael Wilson stressed that the district’s plan can be changed after it is submitted to the state. He promised to expand the committee that has been working on the re-opening plan, and he promised to hold question-and-answer sessions with the public.
At the end of a more than three-hour discussion, the school board voted to send the plan to the state, with the caveat more details, including input from the public, will be coming.
The plan from the school district is embedded at the bottom of this post.
The YouTube video of the meeting follows:
Please note the chairman’s Internet connection was not working, so they don’t actually start talking about the plan until the 40-minute mark. That caused several members to suggest the board needs to figure out a way to start meeting in person again, where the public could be present (while observing social distance guidelines).
NOTE: As of 10:30 p.m., the district wasn’t allowing its public meeting to be embedded on websites, so click here to watch the show.
Seymour Public Schools State Reopening Plan as of JULY 23 by The Valley Indy on Scribd
