Mt. Lebanon School District Superintendent Timothy Steinhauer, citing health concerns as well as a potential lack of teachers, is recommending the district go fully remote for the first nine weeks of the school year.
“We have had more than 150 of our teachers and staff indicate that they may not be able to return safely to an in-person environment,” Mr. Steinhauer said during a Monday school board meeting that more than 1,000 people took part in online.
School in Mt. Lebanon is set to start Aug. 31.
The board has scheduled a special meeting for 7:30 p.m. Thursday to vote on a reopening plan. The meeting will be held via Zoom with a link to be posted on the district’s website, www.mtlsd.org by the day of the meeting.
In response to the proposal for remote-only learning for the first nine weeks of school, over 50 people — ranging from parents to their children as young as kindergartners — organized a protest in front of Mt. Lebanon’s Public Safety Center on Wednesday night. The protesters held colorful neon green signs that read, “Voice for Choice” and “Please vote yes so I can return to my school.”
Rising Mt. Lebanon senior Alex Aracri was among the protesters calling for a choice to physically attend classes. Alex, 17, says she believes remote learning for seven hours a day “with no breaks” is “not OK.”
Alex noted how she believes her education isn’t “going to be the best behind a screen.”
“I saw it when I did it last semester,” she said, “and you would learn things for five minutes to do your homework for the day to send in. That’s not going to help me when I go to college.”
The protest’s co-organizer, Susan Uffelman, 53, said the protest is calling for the school board to provide an option to send children back to school with “either a full opening or a hybrid model.”
Mr. Uffelman, whose son is a senior in high school, said parents need to go back to work and that their children “need normalcy” again.
“The virus is not going away, so we are going to have to live with this and get back to some type of normal life,” Ms. Uffelman said. “We accept some amount of risk with this. There’s obviously going to be an outbreak, people are going to get it, but we have risk everyday in our life. There’s a calculated risk with this, but we have to do it.”
Protestors are on the move pic.twitter.com/K72S9BcDie
— Lauren Lee (@lauren_llee) August 12, 2020
In a presentation prior to Mr. Steinhauer’s recommendation, Assistant Superintendent Ronald Davis said the district recently received some guidance from the state Department of Health and Department of Education regarding school reopenings during the pandemic.
The recommendations focused on low, moderate or high incident rates of COVID-19. Mr. Steinhauer said using that metric, the district is in the “moderate” incident rate, which would allow for a hybrid school option where students would be in class two days a week with remote learning the other three days.
“The question of how to safely open school has kept me awake many nights,” Mr. Steinhauer said.
He said when the district first started to talk about reopening in the spring, his team was optimistic.
“However, in just the past few weeks, we have seen the COVID environment change very quickly,” Mr. Steinhauer said. “While I understand and respect the varied opinions in our community, I truly believe I have the duty to recommend what I believe is the best pathway forward for the safety of our students, their families, faculty and staff.”
He assured those watching the meeting that instruction during the nine weeks of remote learning, if the board decides to approve it, will be “far better” than the instruction that occurred after the emergency shutdown in March.
“Your child’s teacher will lead the instruction throughout the entire day,” Mr. Steinhauer said.
Mr. Steinhauer said the district is looking into allowing students with special needs to receive some in-person instruction as needed.
He added, “Beyond the students, I also have the duty to protect the health of our entire school community which includes 700-plus employees and over 33,000 residents.”
Ashley Loboda, 37, a pediatrician who also attended the protest, said providing the choice for in-person instruction is important for her 5-year-old daughter Eliana, who has special needs.
“For Eliana, her attention span isn’t great enough for her to sit in front of a screen,” Ms. Loboda said. “She receives physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and all those things are not of the same caliber when it’s over a screen. We’ve been doing it over a screen for months, and it’s time to do it in person.”
As photos of the protest reached social media, several parents and students voiced out against the protesters. Many parents opposing the protest reached out to the Post-Gazette, stating in a perfect world they would support reopening, but remote learning is the safest option right now. Mimli Roychoudhury, 44, said she is for remote learning only for the first nine weeks, as she says many teachers in the school district are old enough to be “at-risk” of COVID-19 and can take a leave of absence if they feel unsafe to teach in-person.
“The teachers do have a right to teach remotely,” said Ms. Roychoudhury, who is a mother of a fifth grader and a eighth grader in the school district, said. “If the teachers in my school district feel it’s not safe for them, I’m not going to be the person who says, ‘Yeah, I think you should go back and risk your family and your life for my kids.’”
Resident Stephanie Myers also spoke out against the protest, telling the Post-Gazette that the school district “doesn’t have the money” to hire 100 substitute teachers if it reopens.
“There have been reports both in the U.S. and abroad of schools having to close because of outbreaks. We don't want that for our community,” Ms. Myers said in an email.
Valerie Brown, president of the Mt. Lebanon Education Association, said, “This fall will be characterized by uncertainty, but what I am certain of is the Mt. Lebanon educators will do everything in their power to provide the best education possible for each and every student.”
She is asking the Mt. Lebanon community to protect the health and safety of students and educators by supporting the remote learning option for the first nine weeks “until we can safely return to our traditional Mt. Lebanon brick-and-mortar schools.”
Resident Rebecca Loughney said she believed the remote education will last more than just the first nine weeks and asked the board to come up with a more long-term plan.
“I just don’t see us going back even in the winter time. Realistically, it’s probably going to be worse,” she said. “I think parents need to plan what their whole year is going to look like, because realistically, I don’t see us going back in November.”
Resident Peter Darcy said he was concerned about the mental health of children who have been out of school since March.
“This pandemic has created so much burden on these children,” he said. “To really only promote and advocate a virtual model — you’re shortchanging these children. There is a mental health crisis that is looming right now, and you are doing nothing with this virtual model to address peer-to-peer socialization and special needs.”
Board member Elaine Cappucci said she wanted people to understand that should 100 to 150 staff members decide they need to take a leave of absence if school were to return in-person that the district cannot afford to hire 100 long-term substitute teachers.
“I’m really sad to be where we are today,” Ms. Cappucci said. “I really wanted kids to be back in the building. I’m just not sure it’s going to be an option,” she said.
A video of the entire Monday meeting can be viewed on the district’s website, www.mtlsd.org.
Deana Carpenter, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.
First Published: August 11, 2020, 5:01 p.m.
Updated: August 13, 2020, 11:02 a.m.
