Parents Told It's Not Yet Safe For Full, 5-Day In Person School

BRANFORD, CT — For hours Wednesday night, parents shared their urgent and impassioned calls for a return to full, in-person classes in Branford schools during the Board of Education meeting.

One after the other, parents, some in person at the special meeting and most online calling in, were frustrated, angry, and even tearful as they demanded action. Their refrain is that families are struggling, students are struggling and most believe that the data and science show kids are better off in school than not.

Parent Jennifer Orlando came armed with a Change.org petition signed by 385 people calling for a return to full, in-person classes, or at the very least a solid plan for that return.

"The social and emotional toll this has taken is devastating," it reads. "Of course our first priority is everyone’s safety, but if we follow the science as we are told to do, Branford schools should be opened for 5 days a week. There needs to be a level of transparency between the BOE and the parents of this town. We are requesting what should already be set in motion. A clear plan to reopen Branford."

Some parents called for a vote of no confidence in schools Superintendent Hamlet Hernandez for what they said was both his lack of communication and failure to produce a return plan.

Parent of Branford schoolchildren Jennifer Alexander said she’d repeatedly emailed Hernandez and gotten no reply. She said she was “disgusted by the lack of communication and lack of information.”

“Teachers are doing their best but leadership at the top,” she asked. “You should have been planning for reopening for months.” She asked district leadership be held accountable and that the lack of a clear plan is “unacceptable.”

Another parent, Megan DeLucia, echoed those sentiments.

“I’ve emailed several of you with no answers,” she said. “We’re going on one year my son is behind more than ever.” She demanded that within a week there should be a “clear plan” and a full reopening by the end of March, following the vaccination of teachers. “The Board of Education has to step up.”

For the better part of two hours, frustrated parents made their feelings known with several demanding that a no confidence vote be held with the board’s backing.

“I don't think you have any concept of our home life,” one parent said. “Every day is harder than the next.”

Branford has been operating on a hybrid model that has kids in school a couple of days a week with Wednesdays being full remote in order to allow for cleaning of buildings. Wednesday, the district sent home a letter that added another half day of in-person classes every other Wednesday for elementary schools. Some called that measure inadequate at best.

See the full meeting here. Parents comments are at the beginning of the four-hour long meeting.

After the public comment portion of the meeting ended, there was a presentation from East Shore District Health director Michael Pascucilla. The health department covers Branford, North Branford and East Haven, and is coordinating with Guilford and Madison to do all vaccine rollouts including vaccinating educators, which is expected to begin next week and continue through until the end of March.

What Pascucilla told the board, and the many members of the public logged on to the live stream, is that the coronavirus cases positivity rate in Branford is increasing. He said that the town is nearing the top of the state’s positivity rate and pointed to the discovery of the first variant of the virus being found in the area. He later, via email, confirmed for Patch that the first cases of the more contagious B.1.1.7 variant of the virus were found in Branford/North Branford.

“We are going up, not trending down at the rate as the rest of the state,” Pascucilla said, but noted to parents who shared their frustrations, and as a parent of a high school student himself, “I hear you loud and clear.”

“But we cannot just loosen restrictions. This (return to full in-person school) can’t happen overnight,” Pascucilla said. "We can control this virus but must do it in a calculated and safe way."

Hernandez spoke afterwards and apologized for not getting back to people who emailed him. He said that with the data showing Branford cases not trending downward like the rest of the state, there must be caution, while adding that the district is committed to getting kids back in school full time, but in a careful and measured way.

“Hopefully it'll happen but it may not happen at the speed that we would like it to happen can we bring more more students in I think we need to do that in a very deliberate way,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez conceded that as the district had set as its goals “health and safety” a “rigorous” education model was as important a goal, a measure he admitted where the district has “fallen short.”

“I know that. I feel that. I don't shy away from that. I also know that our staff and parents have worked as hard as they possibly can to make it work," Hernandez said. "But we pivoted an aircraft carrier on a dime on March 13 of last year and ever since then we have been playing catch-up. We've been trying to balance what's happening with a safety perspective.”

Saying parent sentiment is shared, the goal is to “have our kids return to a sense of normalcy so that their learning doesn't continue to decelerate.”

“I think that we’re on the cusp frankly. There’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

A meeting, described as an open discussion, where the public can fully weigh in on a full reopening as well as attendance at youth sports among other pandemic-related schools' issues is planned for 6 p.m. on March 3.