The well-worn phrase “back to school” — an inescapable part of our late summer ritual — might not be totally accurate in this strange year of 2020.
In a week or two, most kids will be going to school, true, but not “back” to it, in the sense of returning to something familiar. The ebb and flow of the coronavirus pandemic are playing havoc with education, no less than they have with virtually every other dimension of society, and little these days can be taken for granted.
Will students be returning to the buildings they attended before the pandemic surfaced last spring or will they learn their lessons at home in front of a computer? Or both? If they “go” to school, will they be required to have their temperatures taken daily, wear masks, socially distance by studying in small groups such as “cohorts” or “pods”?
Will their parents be allowed to come into school facilities? Will their teachers be kept safe? Will their classrooms and common areas be kept scrupulously clean?
What if a student tests positive for the virus? What will be done with the student, with his or her class, with the rest of the school?
Will they be able to make up for the time they lost in class last spring?
Will they be able to keep up with the knowledge they are expected to gain during the current school term?
Questions galore — with answers that vary from city to city, district to district, sometimes school to school. And tentative answers at that, not to mention highly susceptible to political crosswinds.
More than one of the Jewish school and preschool administrators surveyed by the Intermountain Jewish News for this article used the classic Jewish phrase “G-d willing” as a caveat to their replies, in a realistic nod to the uncertainty and anxiety that hover over their — and just about everybody else’s — best laid plans.
As of last week, the information below is the most current available as to schedules and precautions as they will be applied by Jewish day schools and preschools in the metro area.
Just don’t hold your breath . . . yet.
DAY SCHOOLS
Beth Jacob High School for Girls is planning for an “in-person” return to school on Aug. 27.
In a recent letter to the school’s parents, forwarded to the IJN through Beth Jacob dean Rabbi Myer Schwab, the phrase B”EH (Hebrew for B’ezrat HaShem, with G-d’s help) is included as part of the text.
The West Side high school is in the process of surveying parents and teachers as to what safety procedures will be in place as it opens.
“Our goal is to provide a true Bais Yaakov Denver experience in a physically and emotionally healthy way within the legal guidelines of the COVID-19 era,” the letter states.
By the time the school opens, it will have adopted policies regarding the wearing of face masks, temperature checks, health screenings, social distancing and special school supplies students may be required to have.
Decisions regarding sanitation and daily cleaning procedures will also be finalized, as well as policies regarding lunch and food in the school facility.
Also being considered is a “stay-at-home” policy, apparently for students and parents who might want to opt out of physical attendance, and what procedures the school will follow in case a student tests positive with coronavirus.
Denver Academy of Torah expects, “G-d willing,” to open on Aug. 20, “physically on campus,” for students from kindergarten to 12th grade, according to a joint statement to the IJN from Lisa Stroll and Rabbi Dani Rockoff, head of school and Judaic Studies principal respectively.
“Our plan as of today [July 31] is to open physically on campus for K-12,” the educators noted, adding that the school year will ideally begin with a regular schedule.
“The only change will be slightly staggered start times to ensure all students can be screened on the way in to school. Should we have to further limit the number of students in the building, we will look at a hybrid model to accommodate as many students as possible.”
In the “hybrid” scenario, remote learning would be employed, in which case Zoom will serve as DAT’s conferencing platform and Google Classroom will be used by teachers for all class information.
Such platforms as iTalam, Bishvil Ha’Ivrit, Pearson Learning and EPIC will augment the school’s various curricula.
A policy of “cohort” student grouping will be in place as classes at DAT get started.
“We plan to operate with three cohorts: Grades K-5, 6-8 and 9-12,” the administrators said.
“Our teachers will operate in two cohorts, K-5 and 6-12. This allows for teachers to be with students across grade levels within their cohort.
“In the event of an infection in one cohort, that cohort will quarantine but others may be able to stay in the building.”
Local, state and federal guidelines will be followed in the event any student at the school tests positive for the virus, “to determine appropriate steps for each situation.”
The school is aware that last spring’s early closing, and the current school term’s uncertain schedule, may require some remedial or catch-up learning, Stroll and Rockoff noted. Hence, during the week before school begins, “students will be coming for assessments so we can ascertain what skills or concepts may need to be reviewed.”
Students will be required to wear face masks, have their temperatures taken regularly and observe social distancing guidelines. Only students, faculty and staff will be allowed into the school building; not parents.
Speaking of DAT’s parents, they have voiced strong support for the school’s reopening efforts, Stroll and Rockoff said.
“Our parent community has been incredibly supportive of our efforts to ensure continuity of education while putting the safety of our students, faculty, and staff at the forefront of every decision we make.”
The same dedication will be applied to ensure that the school’s academic standards are maintained despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.
“We fully expect to maintain our educational standards regardless of the conditions in which we find ourselves. We are entering the year with a plan for multiple scenarios to enable us to maintain our standards.”
Denver Jewish Day School will open for sixth-graders on Aug. 19 and the following day for all other grades, K-12, Head of School-CEO Avi Halzel told the IJN.
The school’s approach to reopening is highly flexible and leaves important decision-making up to parents of students.
“We are opening with in-person learning and will have an option for streaming of classes for families who wish to keep their children home,” Halzel said.
“We have scenarios for in-person learning, remote learning and a hybrid model should we need to reduce the number of students at school at one time. We use multiple platforms such as Zoom for remote learning.”
Halzel adds that he expects most DJDS students to hit the ground running when it comes to academic readiness.
“Our remote program was strong,” he says of last term’s final semester, “and we are not anticipating the need for much catching up.”
Students will be grouped in cohorts, to minimize opportunities for exposure.
The usual school litany of precautions — face masks worn by everyone in the school, temperature checks, physical distancing, parents not allowed into buildings — will all be observed at DJDS.
In addition, desk shields will be in place for students’ desks and HEPA filters (high-efficiency particulate air) will be installed in the facility’s climate control systems.
If a student tests positive, the school will follow the guidelines of the Colorado Dept. of Public Health and Dept. of Education, said Halzel, adding that DJDS is also consulting with Tri-County Health for that and other health scenarios that might arise.
DJDS parents are “mostly thankful and appreciative” of all these new measures, Halzel said, while acknowledging that “people are nervous too, which is understandable.”
For the school’s part, he added, “we will do our best to maintain our high educational standards.”
Hillel Academy is slated to open on Aug. 31 — “G-d willing,” principal Rabbi Yisroel Goldbaum says.
The school’s strong emphasis is on in-person learning, in the school’s East Side facility, although “we have one teacher who will be teaching her students in their classrooms from her home via technology,” the rabbi says.
In her situation, and possibly in other scenarios down the line, Zoom, teleconferencing and Google Drive will be employed for Hillel students who need to study remotely in one way or another.
“Our focus will be that our offerings are comprehensive and interactive,” Rabbi Goldbaum stressed.
The school’s schedule will be somewhat altered this year. As the term begins, there will be no morning minyan and no breakfast for middle school boys, as is customary at the Orthodox day school.
Opportunities for students to congregate at recess or assemblies, or at dismissal time, will be minimized. Students who carpool together will gather in classrooms instead of common areas to avoid unnecessary contact with other students.
There will some catch-up learning as the term begins, the rabbi added, especially in mathematics and reading for the school’s younger students.
“We follow all state and local mandates” regarding precautionary procedures, the principal says, including “face masks unless students are outdoors or seated at their desks at safe distances from others, and only if this is allowed by the state and city,” which he added is currently not the case.
Hillel will maintain a distance of six feet between desks or four feet if a desk shield is provided.
Temperatures will be taken of all students and others entering the facility.
Parents will be allowed entry “by invitation only, and only if there is no other option.”
The school has also upgraded the daily cleaning and disinfecting of all its facilities.
In case a student tests positive for the virus, Rabbi Goldbaum indicates, “anyone with direct contact with the infected individual will need to be determined to be COVID free before returning to school.
“This includes classmates, family members and carpool buddies.
“Affected classes and students will resort to remote learning.”
Cohort grouping will be employed to the highest degree feasible, he adds.
“Classes will be segregated as much as possible, so that an infection in one class will not have a domino effect on the rest of the school.”
The school’s precautionary measures have earned the support of its parents.
They are “positive and supportive of in-person schooling,” Rabbi Goldbaum says.
“A survey two weeks ago indicated that 90% of our parents are very likely to send their children to school under the current conditions.”
The rabbi is confident that the “learn in school” approach taken by Hillel Academy this year will be crucial to its academic success.
“As long as we can maintain in-person schooling,” he says, “we should be able to meet all our standards.”
Yeshiva Toras Chaim is planning for its West Side high school to officially open on Aug. 24. The school’s CEO, Rabbi Aharon Wasserman, adds “G-d willing” when he provides the opening date.
The plan is for exclusively in-person learning, a decision strongly influenced by the fact that Yeshiva Toras Chaim is primarily a boarding school, with most or all of its students residing in the school dormitory, the rabbi adds.
That should also enable the yeshiva to adhere to its normal hours and schedule.
Rabbi Wasserman doesn’t expect any significant catch-up learning as the new term begins.
“Being that we really kept up a pretty regular schedule during the last month of school we are hoping to be pretty OK,” he says.
“However we will assess everything when the students return,”he adds.
Some form of modified classroom organization is likely to be employed, he says, at least at the beginning of the current semester.
The school’s inherent “insulated environment” should make that process significantly easier, Rabbi Wasserman says.
Exactly what COVID-related precautions Yeshiva Toras Chaim plans to implement is still under discussion, he added.
“We are working closely with leading medical professionals and governmental officials to create the appropriate guidelines and procedures,” he said, adding that the same approach will apply in the event any student at the yeshiva should test positive for the virus.
PRESCHOOLS
BMH-BJ’s preschool opened on May 11 — perhaps the first Jewish organization to reopen in Denver after the pandemic began in March — and has operated all the way through this troubled summer.
So far, it’s been smooth sailing, says preschool director Lindsey Levin-Salomon.
“We have had a wonderful summer,” she says.
“The classrooms look a little bit different but the love and excitement from the teachers is still very evident as always.”
There have been no positive diagnoses of the virus among the preschool’s young charges or faculty members, and not even a “scare.”
But it has definitely been a learning experience, Levin-Salomon says.
“Opening slowly was helpful as it gave the teachers time to put new systems in place and adjust to our new ‘normal.’ Having all of the safety procedures and precautions in place in advance helped us run through everything before we opened.
“We created a COVID manual that was given to parents prior to re-opening the school.
“Our sick policy has become more rigid and if children have a fever, they are not able to come back to school for 72 hours.”
Except for that added precaution, BMH-BJ has maintained the fairly strict precautionary guidelines it adopted last spring.
“All children are screened at drop off and parents sign a health check each morning,” Levin-Salomon says.
“Our biggest change is not allowing parents into the building. We have a drop-off-pick-up line in the morning that has worked really well. All of the staff wears masks and children are encouraged to wear their masks as long as they will tolerate them. The classrooms have been rearranged to encourage physical distancing.”
If it should happen that a child tests positive, “we would notify the health department and follow their guidance,” she says. “Right now, our policy states that we would close for 72 hours for deep cleaning.”
Grateful that things have gone so well for the preschool, Levin-Salomon adds a note of thanks.
“We are grateful for the help and support of the BMH-BJ synagogue board and the preschool board as well as the Colorado Jewish Early Childhood Initiative.”
The Hebrew Educational Alliance preschool opened gradually this summer, preschool director Rebecca Paradis told the IJN.
“We reopened June 15 for a small summer camp program. We welcomed two classrooms of children and everything has gone smoothly.
“The children were so delighted to be back at school and with friends.
“Whatever anxiety we as adults might have been feeling faded quickly as we adapted to new routines and were able to see, hear and feel the joy of being back together again.”
The “school” part of HEA’s preschool is expected to resume on Aug. 17, as scheduled.
The last two months have not seen a single positive diagnosis among the preschool’s children.
“Everyone has been healthy,” Paradis says, “and we pray that continues.”
In the worst case scenario of a positive or presumed positive test result among staff, faculty or students, she says “we will contact our licensing/health department representative for current guidance.”
The preschool has done its best to keep up with changing state guidelines and stay ahead of the ever-shifting pandemic learning curve.
“We have made many changes based on the state guidance. We start off our day with health screenings, touchless attendance-taking and curbside drop-offs.
“In the classroom, all staff are wearing masks and we are working with our students three and up to learn age-appropriate mask wearing etiquette.
“Our classrooms look great. Reducing the number of things and removing items that cannot easily be cleaned has allowed our staff to expand upon the wonderful, imaginative and creative provocations they set out for our young learners each day.”
Temple Emanuel’s Rabbi Steven Foster Early Learning Center has also operated throughout much of the summer, opening on June 29, says director Susan Wartchow.
Also like the other preschools surveyed for this article, it has seen no problems in terms of positive virus diagnoses.
“Everything has been going very well,” she says, adding that if that should change, the preschool will adhere to procedures of the CDC and local health authorities.
The preschool staff has learned a great deal about how to function in the uncertain conditions of a global pandemic, Wartchow says.
“We have learned that creating a brit among the 10 families in each class has led to a safe, positive, proactive and meaningful way to begin a year,” she says, using the Hebrew word for covenant, or pact.
“We are not only holding each other accountable but trusting one another to make safe choices in our outside world as we create a sacred community together.”
To perform well under such stressful conditions, Wartchow adds, requires “open and candid communication.”
Things at the Emanuel preschool are definitely different this summer, she says. In addition to limiting classroom size to 10 children, the classes are always led by the same teachers, “to ensure mitigation of the virus and tracing capability.”
Parents are not allowed into the building and teachers plan classroom activities around the idea of physical distancing.
In addition, “We take temps and ask for symptoms daily, our teaching staff wears masks and three-year-old and older children are kindly encouraged to do a mitzvah by wearing a mask.”
Helping teachers immensely in that effort, Wartchow adds, has been the use of Caroline Saliman’s 2020 book for children, A Mask is a Mitzvah.
Temple Sinai preschool opened the camp portion of its activities on June 15, after more than two months of closure, and plans to start the school portion on Monday, Aug. 17, Sheila Purdin, director of early childhood education, says.
No children have tested positive for the virus since the reopening, although “we had one teacher who was exposed, quarantined and tested,” ultimately with a negative result.
“It is amazing,” Purdin says. “We are very proud to be open and believe that it has been incredibly beneficial to the children, families and faculty.”
The Sinai preschool requires face masks, the taking of temperatures daily and physical distancing and insists that parents stay out of the building, as do virtually all of the schools and preschools.
Additional measures, such a curbside drop-offs of children and maintaining “stable groups,” have become standard procedure at the preschool.
So has a sanitation policy in which “we disinfect so much,” Purdin says.
Like her colleagues at Temple Emanuel, Purdin says the Temple Sinai preschool has benefitted from a gradual and open-minded approach to reopening amidst the pandemic.
“We opened our summer camp with reduced hours, reduced capacity and some very trepidatious families and teachers.
“We made the decision to start small, learn and practice the new procedures in accordance with Colorado Office of Early Childhood, and put the majority of our energy toward creating a learning environment that is responsive to and reflects the needs of very young children in this new reality.”
Taking creative approaches to social distancing and drop-offs, and doing virtual home visits with families before reopening, have not only eased fears but resulted in a safe learning environment for children.
“We are now in our seventh week of camp, have nearly doubled our capacity since opening and are very proud of the work we have done and continue to do,” Purdin says.
“Temperature checks are no big deal, we are pros at disinfecting everything, and masks are no barrier to the love that is exchanged between children and their teachers.
“All of our fears have taken a backseat to the extraordinary joy we feel back in this place so many of us call home.”
Chris Leppek may be reached at IJNEWS@aol.com.
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