JACKSON – With the graduation ceremonies now a memory, the school year has ended but the School Board and administrators are already looking toward the next year to start in a more traditional format.
With the State of Emergency Order having ended in New Jersey and other states, classrooms in Jackson are expected to look a bit more normal come September but officials will be looking at the health and safety conditions occurring regarding the COVID-19 pandemic including any cases of variant viruses.
During her superintendent’s report at the latest Board of Education meeting, Nicole Pormilli discussed the closing of the current school year.
“It was a wonderful closing. It was so beautiful and nice to see our students and our staff smiles. For our high school graduations, we could not have asked for more beautiful weather. The fact that our graduates got to be outside with all of their family able to attend as if we had no protocols or any pandemic – it was fantastic,” she said.
“We were able to get in on the proms and activities that were outside for students. After a challenging 15 months, it was a lovely close to the school year. Thank you to our community, thank you to our teachers and I hope our students and their families really enjoyed those events,” the superintendent added.
She reviewed the district goals of the 2020-21 school year while Assistant Superintendent Robert Rotante presented an overview of the district’s safe return plan that each school district in the state is required to submit.
Next Year’s Plan
Rotante said “there has been zero guidance from the Department of Education or the governor’s office regarding how to reopen. We sent a survey that had over 2,100 responses from parents regarding reopening school in September and we had a staff survey with over 800 responses.”
“We have had meetings with our district administration staff on the school level and staff faculty meetings and our administrative groups,” Rotante added.
He said the plan is to reopen all schools in September with a return to five full days of learning for all students operating under normal schedules. That includes having breakfast available and lunch sessions. “Masks will continue to be optional. Social distancing to the extent possible which is dictated by class size.”
Grants And Goals
Pormilli announced that the school district would receive $8.3 million from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) which will be used to “address the challenges of the pandemic. That will certainly help us with our budget deficits from S2 (State Aid funding formula) and our overall $18 million cuts that we will have in our budget. That will help us but there are specific uses for that money and the district is planning to use that money to reduce class size, to provide interventions to our students, to provide support with mental health needs to our students and staff. We will also provide programs for students and families, some of which are happening this summer to help accelerate learning.”
In her presentation review, Pormilli said that among those goals was health and safety and to implement all the health protocols required by the State Department of Education. “We trained our teachers and staff on those procedures. Those goals were completed.”
Pormilli said that the school district’s plan that had been approved by the State had been revised as changes in safety protocols occurred. “Those pivots were required due to changes in guidelines. Most importantly it was revised with synchronous learning because we had started with two separate programs and a lot of training was provided for that synchronous learning as well for our staff. Expensive training.
“Our staff and our students were trained on health protocols. Our nurses were trained by our nurse coordinator and the health screening was created and implemented for both students and staff and needed to be revised several times based on the health (case) numbers and travel advisories. I feel that goal was met,” Pormilli added.
A regular goal each year involves curriculum and student achievement. Pormilli said, “this year we needed to create two unique programs very quickly before the doors opened in the school district. We created an in-person learning program and a full remote learning program. We had students that were full remote all the time with a teacher and we were very pleased with the outcome of that. We felt that was the best for student achievement and academic progress.”
A Question Of Quality Education
“Can you, speaking for the entire district, say, with all the challenges, we were able to provide sufficient education, quality education at the par of what would have been had there not been covid restrictions?” Board member Gus Acevedo asked Pormilli.
“I will say by all means we worked very hard last summer with our curriculum to take the big standards – the ones most important to ensure that a student is prepared in that grade level. We worked with our teachers before school opened with the two approaches – the hybrid and a remote academy approach – I do believe our students received high quality instruction from our teachers this year,” she responded.
