After Parent Protest, Schools Transition To In-Person March 22

BRANFORD, CT — “We were heard.”

After an outcry from parents, Branford schools will bring all students back to full in-person learning by the end of the month with elementary school students returning to their classrooms on a full-time, in-person basis March 22.

“I believe it’s a heavy lift for staff but this is also a heavy lift for students,” schools Superintendent Hamlet Hernandez said at a special board of education meeting Wednesday. “They’ll be excited but when we get into school and the routine kicks in we will be ...what will change so everybody can go into this with their eyes wide open.”

For the past several weeks, there’s been a full-throated campaign by parents, many of whom chastised the district, and Hernandez in particular, for not moving with more urgency to get kids back in the classrooms full time. A plan presented March 3 to bring all students back to full time in person by April 19 was loudly challenged.

So, the district surveyed parents and staff.

Of the near 1,600 parent responses, 58 percent wanted full, in-person before the end of March. Twenty-three percent wanted the district to remain in the hybrid model until all "indicators" showed it was safe to do so and 19 percent wanted the district to wait until after the spring break to return.

Among school staff, completed by less than half the total surveyed — 321 responses of the 713 surveyed —, was the flip side of the parent survey results; 46 percent said remain in hybrid, 32 percent said return after spring break and 20 percent opted for a full return by the end of March.

Hernandez and the administration team came back to the table Wednesday with a new "accelerated” transition plan.

Elementary school students will return to full in-person the week of March 22 through March 16, Walsh Intermediate School will follow the week of March 29 through April 2 and Branford High School will return to in-person the week of April 5.