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Arlington diocese schools plan careful reopening, with options

Zoey Maraist | Catholic Herald Staff Writer

Joseph Vorbach, diocesan superintendent of schools, appears in a video message to the school community at bit.ly/Schools-message. In an interview with the Catholic Herald, he said the diocese is exploring the possibility of an online school this fall for families not ready to send children back to physical classrooms. SCREENGRAB

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The principal looked around the familiar hallways of her school
with a pair of fresh eyes. They definitely needed to replace the water
fountains, perhaps with a touchless water bottle filling station? Hand
sanitizer should be outside every classroom door. Could desks be pushed farther
apart? Could they be outfitted with plexiglass barriers? And if all these
changes and more were made, would they be able to safely have in-person
instruction in the fall?

After examining her surroundings, consulting the guidelines of
health experts and talking it over with others in the community, Principal
Sally Nicholson of St. Patrick School in Fredericksburg determined they would
be able to safely welcome students back to school, five days a week. 

But a lot would be different. For one, students would have their
temperature checked each morning in the carpool line. Everyone would be masked
and socially distanced. The school would be cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.
But they would be together again. 

“The overall feeling is relief that we’re all coming back,” said
Nicholson. “Putting our plan out early and being very thorough with it and
answering questions and being very upfront and transparent has given our
families a chance to jump on board and trust that we’re doing the best we can.”

In contrast to many of the local public school districts that are
offering 100 percent remote learning in the fall, at press time about
two-thirds of diocesan schools will be fully open at the start of the school
year, said Joseph Vorbach, superintendent of schools. The remaining schools
will offer some hybrid of online and in-person instruction. Each school made
the decision of how to approach instruction based on individual circumstances. 

Though it wasn’t always feasible, getting the children back in
their desks five days a week has been the goal, said Bishop Michael F. Burbidge
during a recent Walk Humbly Podcast. “We are very much determined to open our
schools in the fall,” he said. “The parents know and the medical experts know
that the emotional and mental health of children is at stake, and they need to
be in a community with their friends in a learning environment. 

“But we will only do so if we can to the best of our abilities
ensure the health and wellbeing of our students and our Catholic educators,” he
said. “So, we have to allow for some flexibility. Each school is different —
the size, the classrooms, the space — so we will allow our schools and our
pastors and principals to figure out what they can do and what they can’t do.”

Over the summer, diocesan schools submitted their individualized
reopening plans to the Office of Catholic 
Schools and the Virginia Council for Private Education. “The school
reopening plans need to articulate what the reentry will look like in terms of
schedule, the drop-off procedures, the passing of students in the hallways, how
they will create cohorts to limit the cross contacting, etc. — basically, the
implementation in that school building of all manner of mitigation strategies
and recommended best practices,” said Vorbach. 

The diocesan Office of Catholic Schools helped schools tap into
funding provided by the federal coronavirus relief bill, the CARES Act, which
many used to purchase personal protective equipment and other paraphernalia
needed to keep buildings clean. 

Parents at Our Lady of Hope School in Potomac Falls are choosing
if their kids attend the school or learn from home. This fall, 88 percent of
students will be in the school building while the remaining 12 percent will
watch a livestream of their class from home, said Mary Beth Pittman, principal.

“It’s almost like opening a new school because of all the
procedures and policies you had in place prior to COVID-19, you’re having to
rethink all that through,” she said. 

Based on the relatively low number of students for the large size
of the building, St. Luke School in McLean plans to open for full-time,
in-person instruction this fall, said Tanya Salewski, principal. As with other
schools, going back has required a lot of adjustments, such as switching to
online registration through the school app, installing air filtration systems
and having teachers, instead of students, move from classroom to classroom. 

“We always make decisions with children at the center, and
getting these young kids back in school — the risks of keeping them out far
outweigh the risks of putting them back in,” said Salewski. “So, if we can do
it safely, we owe it to them.”

Salewski is grateful to the teachers and staff who are willing to
provide children a face-to-face education. “It’s not (something) teachers
necessarily consider themselves but they are first responders,” said Salewski.
“It is a job that today is a hazard, but we have a responsibility. I think the
teachers are eager to get back, with the precautions.” 

Parent Jeff Sant feels that schools such as St. Luke have an
opportunity to shine during this crisis. “Catholic schools are all about
community,” he said. “There’s enough fear of the unknown out there that you
take comfort in what you do know, which is the families here. It’s been a
partnership from day one, that even though we don’t know what’s going to
happen, we do know that we can rely on each other.”

Some diocesan Catholic schools such as St. Luke have seen an
increase in enrollment since the pandemic began. The school has accepted dozens
of new students since the start of the pandemic and now is at capacity with 250
students with a waitlist of about 40 children. “We’re really hoping that
families who come to us are ones that have always thought about Catholic
education and now is the time that they’re seeking it out,” said Salewski. “As
a ministry of the parish, it’s great to welcome parish families and we have
welcomed quite a few.”

At this time last year, St. Patrick School had 165 students. It
now has 205 and a waiting list, which the principal attributes to a new
marketing plan, word of mouth about their successful virtual roll-out in the
spring and the remote learning offered at nearby public schools. 

While many Catholic school communities are excited to return to
school, others who have or live with people who have underlying health
conditions are still hesitant to go back. To provide these students and
teachers with an opportunity to study and teach in a Catholic environment, the
diocese is looking to launch an online school this fall. “It’s still a
hypothetical, but we are exploring the creation of a diocesan virtual school.
We would staff it with teachers who are medically unable to return to the
classroom and it would be available to families who want their child to be in a
fully online environment,” said Vorbach. “There’s been a pretty high expression
of interest in it. It will be a bit of a hustle to get it off the ground but
we’re trying to do it.”

Whether the schools provide online or in-person education,
Vorbach believes the months of hard work have made Catholic educators better
positioned to fulfill their role of evangelization and education. “(We have an)
evangelical opportunity before us,” he said. “There’s been a lot of discussion
nationally about the closure of schools and yet here as August is upon us,
we’re in a position where potentially a number of our schools could have an
increased enrollment. We clearly would want to make the most of that.”

At the start of the pandemic, many of the diocesan Catholics
schools quickly launched into e-learning, while several public school districts
struggled to make the switch. Vorbach believes that diocesan Catholic schools
can use the same agility and creativity that brought them online as they return
to the classroom under these challenging circumstances. 

“We’ve grown a lot as a community of educators in the last couple
of months,” said Vorbach. “And we’re going to leverage all that growth to the
benefit of Catholic education.”

 

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