Some P.G. County residents left a virtual community meeting unsure about their kids attending school.

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On Aug. 23, P.G. County Public School administrators, local government officials, and board members assembled in a Zoom meeting with the hopes of providing answers to parents and guardians worried about letting their children return to in-person learning.

However, school administrators’ PowerPoint presentations showing how they would use various kinds of technology — apps, virtual school updates, and COVID-19 disinfectant machines, to name a few — to streamline certain services wasn’t enough to persuade some parents that they were prepared to tackle the challenges children and parents face returning to school amid a surging Delta variant virus.

“You all could have given us a printout of these slideshows in advance,” one community member said. “ We need questions answered. The slideshows you could have emailed to us. Has anyone considered that? We don’t have that much time to be reading all of these slides. The questions need to get answered. That’s what I thought this forum was about tonight.”

Parents in the online meeting wanted administrators to explain how they were going to transport hundreds of students to schools practicing social distance, if students were going to be socially distanced in the classrooms or not, mask mandates, which most were in favor of, and virtual learning options.

The presentation lasted for about 1 hour and a half. P.G. County Board of Education representatives, Belinda Queen, district 6, Raaheela Ahmed, district 5, and Shayla Adams-Stafford, district 4, organized the meeting. Representatives organized the virtual meeting so that parents and guardians could engage the PG County Public Schools administration with their concerns. There were about 200 people in attendance, including local government officials and board members.

“It was important to create an unadulterated space for community members to vocalize their questions and concerns before the start of the school year, and receive answers and affirmation,” explained Ahmed. “ What came to light was that there are still a lot of concerns that need to be addressed.”

Adams-Stafford echoed the same sentiments: “Other board members and I wanted to provide a space for parents to ask questions and talk directly with PGCPS staff about reopening.”

Alex Baylor, an environmental specialist for the PGCPS, outlined how the school is preparing for students to return to in-person learning. Baylor said school administrators will give each student two bottles of water a day, 95,000 Merv filters have been installed, purchased 3,000 air purifiers, 400 electrostatic disinfecting machines, 50 Adibot Ultraviolet disinfecting robots, and buildings will be thoroughly disinfected. Baylor said these robots will be deployed, alongside janitors, to disinfect a building or area where people have contracted the virus. “ They are to help with the disinfecting process,” he explained. Schools will also be on a cleaning schedule. Bathrooms are to be cleaned 2 to 3 three times a day. They also ordered 83,000 face masks for students and faculty and 13,000 gallons of disinfectants.

One person, whose Zoom name was “M”, mentioned that she has two children. “M” said her daughter has severe allergies. She wanted to know if her daughter’s classroom will have an air purifier. “M” is willing to purchase one for the classroom. “I contacted the school and I have gotten no answer,” said M.

Ahmed mentioned that she would follow up with her later after the meeting. It must be noted that PGCPS has thousands of students that will soon occupy hundreds of classrooms, and it doesn’t appear that 3,000 air purifiers will be enough to accommodate each classroom.

Tony Spruill, transportation operations supervisor for PGCPS, talked about how parents can download an app that helps them to track, using a smartphone, their child’s school bus position. This is so that parents, Spruill alluded to, can have information of their child’s whereabouts and meet them at the bus stop. He also informed parents that they would receive a card, via snail mail, with their child’s location information. They can input this into the app, which will then allow them to track their children. Spruill eventually informed parents and guardians that it will be nearly impossible for children to practice social distance on the bus. There is a shortage of bus drivers, which means not a lot of buses will be sent out into the neighborhoods to transport children to school.

Phyllis Wright, 60 years old, became very agitated with, what she considered, a lack of transparency. Wright felt like administrators were not forthright with her nor other community members about the school system’s inability to properly prepare for students’ return. She said it wasn’t safe for students to ride on a bus without the ability to social distance. And that there aren’t enough buses to pick up students at their respective bus stops, because not a lot of buses will be deployed. Queen said we are 240 bus drivers short. Queens said it is likely true that some students may be late to school as a result of the bus driver shortage. In this context, Wright said, administrators need to blatantly tell parents and guardians that they may need to drive their students to school. Additionally, Wright said she didn’t believe there were enough air purifiers for all the classrooms.

“I have two kids that I am responsible for,” said Wright, who knows people that have died of Covid-19. “Tell the people the truth. I don’t want to hear what you’re going to do.”

Robin Sloan, whose family members died after contracting COVID-19, thanked the board members for being able to assemble PGCPS administrators. However, Sloan said she, her voice drenched with fear and sorrow, was very afraid to send her son back to school.

“My son found out today that he has to go back to school, and he is terrified,” Sloan said. “When I hear about the school bus situation, and them sitting students side by side, I am terrified. I am sitting here kicking myself for not putting my son in virtual school — and I cannot get him in. I am fearful for his mental health. My son is saying that he wants to drop out. He doesn’t want to be here. My heart is broken.”

Community members also wanted to know if schools were going to rightly enforce students to socially distance themselves. During the meeting, Queen had mentioned that she had toured some PG County schools. Queen said she observed student’s desks socially distanced. However, in between presentations, hosts — Queen, Ahmed, Adams-Stafford — allowed community members to ask questions. “M” said that she had talked to a Bowie High School secretary. A secretary, “M” said, informed her that “the schools would operate as if there is no COVID-19.” For “M”, that meant students would be near each other without being socially distanced, which is still a CDC recommendation.

Photo by John Cameron on unsplash.com

Queen maintained that students’ desks are socially distanced. She asked Dr. Carletta Marrow, associate superintendent of high schools at PGCPS, about administrators enforcing social distancing in the hallways. Marrow responded by saying that schools are to follow CDC guidelines, which means they are to practice social distance in the hallways. “M” replied that Bowie High School students often fight in the hallways. “If you can’t control fighting in the hallways, how exactly are you going [hinder] these kids from touching each other?,” asked “M.”

Meg Gebreselassie, acting media relations director for PGCPS, explained to parents how they could use an app to receive text messages and newsletters. Gebreselassie encouraged community members to use these tools to stay informed. Not everyone in PG County owns a smartphone, and some have poor internet connections. Community members asked about this, but no one responded to this question.

There was supposed to be a presentation on school security, but the presenter’s internet wasn’t connecting, causing his presentation to be disrupted. Community members asked to move on to the next presentation, which addressed virtual school during the pandemic. Tamra Sease, the online programs coordinator at PGCPS, said K-6 virtual school is exclusively for students who are not eligible to receive Covid-19 vaccination. Many parents expressed their frustration with the program, saying that they hadn’t heard back from administrators about the program. Some had missed the deadline to sign up, and others had little information about the program. Others have been put on a waitlist.

“We are still in the process of offering this [option] to families,” said Sease. “ We are definitely hearing [residents] concerns around how the information has been disseminated, and the number of available seats. Please know that we do hear you. We are working tirelessly around the clock to provide a virtual option for the students.”

Sease said PGCPS initially created the online campus, grades 7 -12, for students that “performed well in a virtual setting.” She said the virtual classes were not created to educate all students in the midst of a pandemic. But even if there were enough virtual seats, Sease said the virtual school has limited staff. So they have to first increase staff to meet the educational needs of their young scholars before they can let in more students. In the meantime, it seems as parents have to wait and see if their child will make it into the virtual school.

“It sounds easy, in a sense, to say ‘we’re just going to put students in virtual [classes].’ But we first have to ensure…that that child is receiving the best structural support,” explained Sease.

Dr. Monica Goldson, chief executive officer of PGCPS, goals align with the state. In June, when America was still in the early stages of vaccinations, Goldson, before the spread of the Delta variant, stated that they would discontinue the hybrid learning for the fall, and push to have students back in the classrooms. Such a push to get students back into schools not only came from the state, but also the Biden administration.

It is not lost on parents that PG County leads the state in coronavirus cases and that it currently has one of the highest transmission rates in the state. Due to the rush to send children back to in-person learning seemingly without enough protocols in place, some parents feel as if the school system has little care for their safety and their children.

“I want my two kids to go back to school because they are honor roll students. I want them to get their full education,” said Wright. “ But I don’t want them to bring COVID home. I don’t want that.”

Queen tried to assure communities that school board members will take their concerns back to Goldson to maybe reconsider the PGCPS’s approach. Goldson is scheduled to have a town hall meeting on Aug. 25, where she may address the parents’ and guardians’ ongoing concerns.

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