An elementary-school class held in the gym at Bronxville Elementary School. Photo: DeSean McClinton-Holland In the expansive cafeteria in Grafflin Elementary School, in Chappaqua, New York, with its double height ceiling and stage on its far side, Carol Scappaticci extended a microphone rubber banded to the end of a yardstick in front of a student. Scappaticci, a fourth grade teacher, likes to slalom among desks in her unusual classroom this year with this homespun tool.
On a large athletic field white dots are painted in a grid as marks for 75 students in phys-ed class. Music is blaring. It’s 64 degrees, the sky is royal blue, and there’s just a hint of autumnal rot in the air. “Our parents are so grateful,” Ackerman says as we gaze at the children dancing in place then, as some sort of exercise or game, one by one running down the aisles of their peers.
It’s become a platitude that “we all want children to be in school.” Yet considering the case rate for hybrid and remote learning is two-hundredths of a percent higher than it is for FTIP learning , in Westchester, and the regional positivity rate has been hovering around 1% for months, why have so many districts been unable to achieve this aim, and how are the successful ones doing so?
Bronxville also split classes between regular rooms, so fewer children are in each classroom at any one time. As we peek in on one of them a history teacher in a Mondrian-patterned mask waves hello. The building’s cafeteria remains open. Children sit at communal tables eating baloney sandwiches and granola bars, while Montesano leans down to chat with them. Aside for the masks on the staff, it feels like an alternate reality from 2019.
To staff all those split classes, Bronxville was able to use teacher residents , a portion of which had already been employed by the district. But they are paid $85 a day, totalling around $135,000 for the year for all of them, a tiny line item in a $50 million budget. They also are used as substitute teachers, cutting some of that expense. In utilizing specials rooms, Chappaqua not only gained space but also, in practice, gained staff members.
“I know those sixth graders hadn’t been in school for a long time,” Jen Lamia, Byram Hills’s superintendent said, explaining why she pushed so hard for her district to run full time through sixth grade. “I didn’t believe they had the disposition to learn remotely. I knew they needed to be in the room.”
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