SOUTH PORTLAND — Plans for reopening school in the fall are still not ready, but South Portland Schools is examining its options, said Superintendent Ken Kunin on May 11.
The Maine CDC and Department of Education is expected to release more guidelines and recommendations soon, Kunin said, which will help administration figure out the best action plan come September.
Assistant Superintendent Kathy Germani told the board of education that there are three different levels that administration is looking at when thinking about reopening schools.
Equating them to a traffic light, Germani said that the first level, red, would not allow schools to reopen in the fall. The yellow level would allow schools to reopen gradually, possibly involving different schedules for staff and students, and the third level, green, would allow everyone to return to schools.
Each one of the colors has many different levels around it, and staff and department heads would have to examine how reopening schools would affect transportation, nutrition, etc., Germani said.
If schools need to continue with online learning next year, either part-time or full-time, the district will be able to create a solid online instructional plan, she said.
“We did a really good job, I think, of getting up and running this spring when we had to, but it really is sort of emergency online learning and not real online instruction,” Germani said. “We know there are different levels around that. What does it look like pre-K to grade five. What does that look like grade six to 12?
She said that neighboring districts and other national organizations have been providing guidelines and statistics for all the situations.
Working with community neighbors also allows South Portland to coordinate their staff members’ schedules, she said.
“Do we need schedules that are coordinated across districts?” Germani said. “Because we recognize that our staff is just as diverse as our students and staff members have families at home which put them in different situations or have health conditions which we all have to be attune to.”
The work is quite a large undertaking, which would normally need years to solidify, but the circumstances are forcing the district to create a plan as soon as possible, said Germani.
Kunin said that the board of education will have more workshops and meetings in late May and early June, and administration will work on the plan through the last day of school on June 12.
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