Hempfield officials reworking middle school surveys prior to full return

Hempfield Area School District officials are modifying surveys sent to middle school parents after several people expressed interest in keeping with the hybrid model.

Responses to the surveys, sent out at the end of October, will be used to determine how many students will make a full return to the classroom in the coming months and who will choose to go fully virtual. Responses will allow officials to take necessary precautions in terms of social distancing in the classroom.

Initially, the surveys allowed parents to choose from only those two options, said Matthew Conner, assistant superintendent for secondary education.

“The middle school principals and I received a lot of feedback from parents saying, ‘You’re narrowing us down to just two choices from the survey,’ and that, ‘My son or daughter is doing quite well with the hybrid model right now. Why are you forcing them into school based on this?’ ” Conner said during Monday’s school board meeting.

Officials now are reworking the survey to reflect the hybrid model as a third option, which is how middle and high school students currently attend classes. The hybrid model alternates students between in-person and online classes.

Parents are asked to commit to one of the three models for the period between Jan. 4 and March 25 rather than Dec. 1 through Jan. 18 as originally proposed. School officials will use the extra time to flush out the logistics of bringing back students fulltime.

When students do return to school daily, they will be put on an A/B schedule. That means the 80 minute instructional blocks will be split for students to rotate between face-to-face time with their teachers and spending time in an overflow space where they will attend classes virtually.

For example, on A days, students who are on the B schedule will begin their day in the overflow space where they will watch the teacher online. Halfway through the class, the students will switch. This method will be used for core classes, including English language arts, math, science and social studies.

Conner said officials are working on where those overflow spaces will be, including in the auditorium or in the gymnasium.

“Each building’s quite unique,” he said. “If you consider the auditorium at Harrold compared to Wendover, there’s significantly less kids that can be held at Harrold. So, we need a couple extra spaces at that building compared to the others.”

Conner is hopeful the additional time will generate more responses. In the first round of surveys, 787 people responded out of 1,286 — a 62% response rate.

“(We’re) hoping that we get many more responses so we can really lock people in and better plan for the upcoming end of the nine weeks and third nine weeks,” Conner said.

A new survey will be sent to parents, but a date on when that will be available was not immediately available.