A6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 , 2020
with health experts, she would
not have sent her child to school.
“I felt the risks outweighed the
benefits,” Sinkler said.
She added: “I hope my fears are
proved wrong, but I’m worried for
the winter and the holidays.”
Bethlehem does not take stu-
dents’ temperatures as they arrive
— a practice of some schools —
which officials say would be hard
to manage and of limited value
because many people are asymp-
tomatic. Families are asked to
screen students for fever, cough
and other symptoms.
The district says it has ramped
up fresh-air ventilation, doubling
the air pulled into the building so
that it turns over in each room
roughly every 10 minutes.
For Roy, big issues ahead in-
clude teaching and learning loss.
The district educates 13,
students, making it the sixth larg-
est of Pennsylvania’s 500 school
systems. It is 43 percent Hispanic,
41 percent White, 11 percent
Black, 2 percent Asian and just
under 3 percent multiracial.
About 60 percent of students are
eligible for free and reduced-price
meals.
With the hybrid setup produc-
ing small class sizes — roughly six
to about 12 students — teachers
are accomplishing a lot and really
getting to know what students
need when they are in the class-
room, Roy said.
“My anxiety is the heavy load on
teachers,” he said. “How far can
you run on the adrenaline of ‘We
got this’?”
Laura Keding, president of the
Bethlehem Education Associa-
tion , the teachers union, said the
school system’s close work with
the city health officials and
St. Luke’s in developing its plan
helped boost confidence in re-
turning to campuses.
“There was definitely an evolu-
tion,” she said. For the early
weeks, the c onsensus was the plan
was “allowing us to work safely.”
More recently, with cases on the
rise, more teachers are concerned
about being notified of potential
exposures, she said.
Many teachers are tired and
overwhelmed, even as they are
glad to see their students.
“There are questions about the
sustainability of the pace we’re
working at,” she said. “As the
months go on, will we find the
balance or are we going to break?”
Educators with medical condi-
tions were able to apply to work
remotely, she said, and others who
are caregivers could apply for an-
other leave option. A few teachers
have retired or resigned, but the
majority stayed on.
One thing that notched down
the stress, Keding said, is that
Mondays are a virtual day from
home. Teachers collaborate, plan,
check in with students, hold
Zoom meetings.
Nancy Lewis, a ceramics teach-
er, said she worried at fi rst about
returning to school. What made a
difference was a school board
meeting at which school officials
answered more than 200 ques-
tions posed by parents and em-
ployees.
It also helped to Zoom with
ceramics teachers across the
state, to share pandemic safety
practices, she said.
So Lewis returned to Liberty
High, following every possible
safe ty protocol. One recent day,
she was outside school with the
hatch of her Honda CRV open so
that her virtual students could
pull up and collect supplies —teacher numbers, family choices
and bus transportation. All of that
and coronavirus numbers.
Months later, Roy’s mornings
start with spreadsheets of data on
school cases and test results. “I’m
obsessed with it,” he said. “I try
not to check it constantly, but this
is what we live by.”
Cases for the most recent 14
days are posted on the school
system’s coronavirus dashboard.
“The transparency piece is
huge,” Roy said. “I don’t want
anyone to think we’re hiding any-
thing. If they do, they’re not going
to go to school. We have to keep
people safe, and we have to keep
up the confidence of the commu-
nity.”
State figures show a 6.5 percent
test positivity rate in Northamp-
ton County, where much of Beth-
lehem is located — a level that is
considered “moderate” by the
state and the CDC. But another
key number — new cases per
100,000 population for a seven-
day period — is 137.8, which the
state pegs as “substantial” com-
munity transmission. The num-
ber falls into a category the CDC
describes as “highest risk” for
transmission in schools.
A t that level, the state guidance
suggests all-virtual learning, but
Roy said the decision rests with
local systems, and he and health
leaders have agreed to keep going
since there is no sign of spread
inside a school. Roy posted a video
explaining his thinking. “ Our mit-
igation works — social distancing,
the hybrid model, wearing masks,
hand hygiene,” he said.
Some experts say broader test-
ing is also a good idea after any
type of school-associated case,
noti ng that some people are as-
ymptomatic or show mild symp-
toms that could be overlooked.
Since school’s opening, more
than 300 educators and support
staff have had to quarantine or be
tested, usually after a potential
close contact outside school. But
the health-care provider that part-
nered with the school system —
St. Luke’s University Health Net-
work — prioritizes tests for stu-
dents and staff, with results in 48
hours, school and health officials
said. As infections rise, the turn-
around might be longer, Roy said.
Not everyone was of the same
mind about going back inside
schools. Angela Sinkler, a school
board member who is a nurse,
voted against it. She says that
while the plan was thoughtful and
benefited from the partnershipChecking the ‘dashboard’
every morning’
Gen Marcon learned that her
school system was moving toward
in-person learning over the sum-
mer. She listened closely to videos
the superintendent posted that
described how it would work. She
read messages that were sent
home.
She concluded that the reduced
class sizes would allow for enough
social distancing to be safe, espe-
cially given masks and other safe-
guards. “We balanced concerns
about safety with needs for social-
ization and other parts of school,”
she said.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t
worried.
Every morning, as she sips her
coffee, Marcon sits in front of her
home-office computer and clicks
on a “das hboard” of school-
related coronavirus cases. Her
three children attend Calypso El-
ementary, not far from the Lehigh
River.
“I look at it and think, ‘Okay,
we’re still doing a good job in the
district, it’s still under control,’ ”
she said. “It gives me peace of
mind, and it kind of quashes any
buzz that may be going around.”
She wishes there were no cases
in Bethlehem schools but — eight
months after the pandemic was
declared — she knows that’s not
the reality of 2020.
“I hope we can keep this up as
long as possible,” she said.
In Bethlehem, students attend
either Wednesday and Friday or
Tuesday and Thursday, a s plit de-
signed to minimize the number of
consecutive days without in-
person learning. On Mondays,
there are check-ins and Zoom
meetings, along with teacher col-
laboration and planning time.
Fewer students ride the bus than
once did.
Marcon says the days on cam-
pus help her children stay on
track when they are home. “The
structure from school is kind of
carr ying over to the online days,”
she explained.
Roy, the 58-year-old superin-
tendent, once envisioned a five-
day in-person school week for
kindergarten through fifth grade,
with a hybrid setup for older stu-
dents. That idea changed amid an
increasing focus on six feet of
social distancing.
Bringing students back is
something of a giant math prob-
lem that starts with state and
federal guidance and must factor
in building space, enrollment,the coronavirus pandemic
air-dry clay, markers, art journals.
“I feel like I have pretty good
rapport, even with my online stu-
dents,” she said.The best there is ‘for the times
we’re in’
Teacher Eric Frank spotted a
boy struggling in his class at Penn
Elementary one day in mid-Octo-
ber and went to help — easier to
do with children in the building.
The fourth-grader was confused
about the assignment.
Later, as other students worked
in their leadership notebooks,
Frank delighted in the answers
several gave as they identified
their “wildly important” goals. “I
love this,” he said. “I’ve got two
people who said their goal was to
go outside more!”
Because it was a Wednesday,
the 10 masked children in his class
had last names that begin with
letters from M to Z. At home,
students with names from the
first half of the alphabet were
learning online. Every other desk
goes empty.
“The hard part is you can’t be in
two places at once, and you want
to be,” said Frank, a teacher for 24
years.
Still, he said, “for the times
we’re in, I think it’s the best there
is.” It is more demanding, he said,
but teachers have learned more
about what does and doesn’t
work. “It’s definitely more com-
fortable,” he said this week.
Frank and others like him teach
hybrid students. He posts lessons
for those at home — vocabulary,
reading, math, writing assign-
ments — and answers their
emailed questions when he can,
but most of his attention during
each school day goes to those in
the classroom.
A separate group of teachers
works with students in elemen-
tary school who are 100 percent
online. But in middle and high
school, it’s different: T he same
teachers juggle instruction for hy-
brid and all-online students.
Jane Prodes, an anatomy teach-
er at Liberty High School, says she
records lectures to go with her
PowerPoint presentations so that
students at home can access them
online — and uses the same ma-
terial as she teaches those who are
in her classroom.
Ten weeks into the year, she
said, “this is working. My kids
seem to really like it, and I’ve got
the timing down.”
Educators say some students
take the wrong message from hy-
brid learning — that they have
days off when they are not physi-
cally in school.
“They think, ‘Well, if I’m not in
school, then I don’t have school,’ ”
said Harrison Bailey III, principal
at Liberty High, who points out
that they are in high school, not
college. “They don’t have the dis-
cipline yet,” especially surround-
ed by distractions: video games,
YouTube, movies.
Grades may suffer this marking
period, he said. “It’s just difficult,”
he said.
The system is urging families
with all-online students who
failed the first marking period to
return for in-person instruction
twice a week.
Roy said educators have asked:
“How can we make some adjust-
ments to try to engage kids
more?”
Peter Mayes, principal of
Nitschmann Middle School, with
7 50 students, said half of his 130
all-virtual students struggle with
the format or don’t plug in.
But as he walks the hallways of
the light-filled school — t he new-
est in the system — i n-person
learning is in full swing. “I find the
in-person, for most kids, is what
they need at this age,” he said.
In one class, teacher Cris Miller
narrated the history of colonial
America, asking his eighth-
graders about the willingness of
colonists to listen to a king across
the sea in England. He related it to
their lives. “What if your parents
were 3,000 miles away?” he asked.
“That’d be fun,” one boy offered
through his mask, as others
laughed.
Wendy Simpson, a mother of
two who heads the PTO at Free-
dom High School, said in-person
learning offers something she’s
not seen before: Her daughter has
classes with as few as six students.
“The kids get to know each
other, and the teacher gets to
know the kids on a much more
personal level,” she said.
At Penn Elementary, 9-year-old
Angel Zuluaga, counted math as a
favorite subject as he wore a cloth
mask with bright orange pump-
kins one day. “I like seeing my
friends and teachers,” he said.
His classmate, Alessandra
Wheeler, 9, with a bright-pink
backpack and a polka-dot face
covering, was matter-of-fact:
“From school, I l ike learning bet-
ter.”
[email protected]count of coronavirus cases in the
United States topped 100,000 for
the first time last week and soared
on Wednesday to more than
145,000, a record.
The Bethlehem school system
is staying the course for as long as
local health leaders say it’s okay,
Roy said this week. Still, “it’s going
rapidly in the wrong direction,” he
added w orriedly.
Bethlehem is part of an early
wave of school districts nationally
that rely at least partly on in-
person instruction. Its approach
is a hybrid, with days that alter-
nate between on-campus and on-
line learning so that fewer stu-
dents crowd together at any one
time.
Now, as an increasing number
of districts strategize about bring-
ing students back, the experience
of the Pennsylvania system 70
miles north of Philadelphia
points to what may be ahead for
others.
The school system developed
its plan with the help of the city
health bureau and a local health-
care network, a partnership that
leaders say was key. It followed
advice from the state and the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, along with research
from Johns Hopkins and Har-
vard.
Families may choose 100 per-
cent virtual instruction if they
prefer. But three-quarters of Beth-
lehem’s students have returned to
school, which they attend two
days a week under a schedule that
blends in three days of online
learning.
For some, it has been a chance
for children to end the stifling
isolation of the pandemic.
“It’s about being there with
adults and other kids and out of
the bubble with just our family,”
said Amy Thompson, secretary of
the parent-teacher organization
at William Penn Elementary, who
said her third-grade daughter is
thrilled at even a part-time re-
turn.
Nineteen of Bethlehem’s 22
schools have had at least one
coronavirus case recorded since
opening Aug. 31. Among people
testing positive are 35 students
who do in-person learning some
days and 14 who learn all online
and do not go to campus. Of 25
positive employees, 19 are educa-
tors, coaches or custodians.
There is no evidence of
“spread” in a school, said Kristen
Wenrich, the city’s health director.
Cases have been largely linked to
family members or activities out-
side school. They ticked up after
Labor Day, much of the spread
related to the college-age popula-
tion, Wenrich said. But recently
more m iddle-aged people have
been affected, probably because
of pandemic fatigue and laxness
with precautions, she added.
Nationally, experts say there is
evidence that schools can operate
safely in person if community
transmission levels are reason-
able and robust safeguards are in
place. Without that, “we should
expect that the virus can spread in
schools the same as it would any-
where else,” said Caitlin Rivers, an
epidemiologist at the Johns Hop-
kins Center for Health Security,
who said districts that succeed
have “important lessons to share.”
Meagan Fitzpatrick, an
i nfectious-disease transmission
modeler at the University of
M aryland School of Medicine,
pointed out that Bethlehem
opened schools when the area’s
incidence rate was far lower, with
less chance that an infected per-
son would go to school.
“They have a much greater
challenge now,” she said. “This is
really the test for them of how well
their in-school measures are
dampening transmission.”
At Penn Elementary, classes
stay together for recess and lunch.
Long rectangular lunch tables
seat two or three children so that
no one gets too close when masks
are off for eating. Hallways are
marked with arrows to keep ev-
eryone moving in one direction.
Crayons are not shared. Hand
sanitizer is abundant.
With fewer s tudents in the
building and voices muffled by
masks, the sound of school is not
the same. It is quieter. “There are
some days when I say, ‘Where is
everyone?’ ” said Joseph Anthes,
the school’s principal.
Educators say one thing that
became clear right away is that
mask-wearing — which is re-
quired — i s not the problem that
many expected.
“Every once in a while, a nose
will come popping out,” said Ash-
ley Schellhaas, a teacher for 15
years. When she makes eye con-
tact and points to her nose, the
child quickly covers up, she said.
“I feel the kids really gra sp the
gravity of the situation,” she said.
“They understand why.”
BETHLEHEM FROM A
Bethlehem, Pa., navigates the risks of in-person learning
PHOTOS BY KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POSTABOVE: Fourth-grade
teacher Eric Frank in his
classroom at William
Penn Elementary.
Because half of his
students are learning
online on any given day,
every other seat goes
empty. “The hard part is
you can’t be in two
places at once, and you
want to be,” Frank said.
AT BOTTOM: On a
sunny day in October,
some students at Liberty
High take off their face
masks as soon as th ey
leave the building.“There are
questions about
the sustainability
of the pace we’re
working at. As the
months go on, will
we find the
balance or are we
going to break?”
Laura Keding, president of
the Bethlehem Education
Association, on the load
teachers are carrying