Milford Schools Delay Return To In-Person Schooling On Wednesdays

MILFORD, CT — Milford students will continue to have remote learning on Wednesdays for a bit longer, school officials announced.

Superintendent of Schools Anna Cutaia said it was her hope that students could return to five-day a week in-person education in late February or early March. But in reviewing several factors, the school system has decided to delay those plans until mid/late March.

"While current health metrics appear to be trending with lower infection rates, there are indications that we may be facing another surge in the coming month due to the variant strains of COVID-19 being seen in the country and in Connecticut," Cutaia said in a note to parents and staff. "With an abundance of caution for the health and safety of our students and staff and with an eye on availability of human resources, we plan to revisit in-person learning decisions in the month of March."

She added that though the infection rate is declining it is still higher than it was when school began in the fall. She also said the new variant, which has been found in New Haven County is more contagious, and they want to proceed in the best interest of the health and safety of students and staff.

She also addressed a perception that the in-person school day is too short. A typical school day is 6 hours and 45 minutes and during this school year the instruction day has been 5 hours. She explained that the shorter instructional day due to staff resources, especially the supervision of lunch.

"With the requirement to socially distance our students by six feet, far fewer students are able to be in any physical setting, particularly in our classrooms and cafeterias," Cutaia wrote. "So, for example, where we may have previously had two 4th grade classrooms in a building, we now would need three classrooms, in order to meet the social distancing requirements now in place.

"In order to staff these extra classrooms, we redeployed non-classroom staff to those sections of classes, preventing us from needing to hire more teachers (with one exception at the middle school in one subject area). Further, since we cannot have students in cafeterias, students are eating lunch in their classrooms and are being supervised by teachers (at one time provided by lunch aides - currently a significant shortage area). Therefore, in most cases, teachers are foregoing lunch and prep periods during the hours that students are with us, thus requiring them to take this time after students leave at the end of a 5-hour day.

"Providing teachers with lunch and preparatory periods is our responsibility and obligation -- especially as they make daily instructional plans to teach students both in-person and virtually, simultaneously, and place a constant effort toward adopting and integrating an accelerated curriculum.

"I recognize and understand the level of pandemic fatigue that we are experiencing right now. I can relate professionally and personally. While we may be feeling this way currently, I encourage us to hold onto hope and faith that we are getting closer to better days which includes the health and safety of all and more in-person learning for Milford Public Schools," she concluded.