SAYREVILLE – Citing a lack of necessary staff members, administrators in the Sayreville School District will instead implement fully remote instruction for students when school begins in September.
New Jersey’s schools were ordered to close in mid-March by Gov. Phil Murphy at the start of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. For the remainder of the 2019-20 school year, students received education remotely at home.
Several weeks ago, Murphy directed school administrators to develop a plan to reopen schools for the 2020-21 school year in a manner that best fits a district’s local needs.
Murphy later said an all-remote option had to be provided for parents who did not want to send their children into a school.
In mid-August, Murphy issued an executive order and said school districts would be permitted to use a fully remote instructional plan if administrators were unable to meet health and safety guidelines related to the reopening of school buildings.
On Aug. 25, Sayreville Board of Education members voted to approve the district’s restart of school plan for 2020-21. The board also authorized Superintendent of Schools Richard Labbe to implement the plan into its first phase.
As part of the first phase, no students will attend school when school begins in September and all of the children will receive instruction remotely. The first phase of fully virtual learning is scheduled to remain in effect until Nov. 12.
Labbe said during the board’s Aug. 25 meeting that Sayreville was using a fully remote instructional plan because the district would not have enough instructional staff to safely reopen the schools.
According to Labbe, the district will implement synchronous learning during the fully remote period, where the instruction will follow an early dismissal schedule and students will receive direct instruction from their teachers.
“In phase 1, students will be required to attend school as they normally would,” the superintendent said. “They would only be at home rather than in school doing so. They would log into their classrooms, participate in live instruction, be assigned work, have a greater opportunity during the day since we’re using an early dismissal schedule to go ahead and complete that work, and then be given the opportunity during the last hour of the academic school day to visit their teachers in what is called office hours so that they could get extra help or ask clarifying questions about any content delivered or any assignments.
“In this phase, students must attend remotely by the exact start time of their scheduled classes in order to be considered present and not tardy,” he continued. “Naturally, we have to take into account any children who are experiencing technical difficulties. Our teachers will be instructed to be flexible and to be considerate towards students who say the reason why they couldn’t log on either at all or on time was because they had technical difficulties.”
Devices will be provided to any students who do not have one for themselves, according to Labbe.
“This way, if there are three children in a household, all three can be participating in synchronous virtual instruction at the same time,” he said.
Students are scheduled to begin receiving virtual instruction on Sept. 3.