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An Inside Look As One Connecticut School Gets Back To Work

At CREC’s Academy of Science and Innovation in New Britain, school principal Karen Mooney has been preparing for the return of 457 students to in-person learning on Sept. 9. 

But the logistics will look a little different from those of past school years in this time of coronavirus.

For starters, they’ll use three entrances, with a valet walk-in service for drop-off and pickup. 

“They’ll come in, they’ll hand-sanitize, they’ll grab from the cart their breakfast, and then they go up to their homeroom, which is on the second or third floor ... so the first floor is only for walkers or parent drop-off in the morning,” she said. 

Back-to-school options vary across Connecticut, with many students remaining home for distance learning. At the Academy of Science and Innovation, students will walk into a building where their peers will be in line and online. 

At the school entrance, a security guard sits behind plexiglass and greets people through a contactless system. 

Large posters with essential safety precautions cover the walls, reminding people to wash their hands, maintain social distancing and have only two people in an elevator. Student lockers are off-limits and sealed with yellow caution tape. 

Credit Ryan Caron King / Connecticut Public
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Connecticut Public
Karen Mooney, principal of the CREC Academy of Science and Innovation in New Britain, stands in one of the school's hallways about two weeks before students will return for in-person classes. The school gave parents and students a choice between learning at home or going back to the classroom.

 

Inside the classroom, students will sit in desks 6 feet apart from one another. The teacher’s desk area is marked by red tape, keeping a “bubble” around the desk and the smartboard. While class is in session, the students will be able to collaborate with digital tools.

Tim Sullivan is the superintendent of CREC Schools, overseeing 16 magnet schools in different districts that serve 8,400 students from over 90 towns throughout the state. 

Families at CREC had the choice to remain in distance learning or return to the classroom for the school year. “For us, what made it work was the fact that 40 percent of our families wanted to stay home,” said Sullivan. 

Credit Ryan Caron King / Connecticut Public
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Connecticut Public
Tape indicates where students can't sit in the CREC Academy of Science and Innovation in order to maintain social distancing. The New Britain school also turned its gymnasium into an eating area to accommodate the need for extra space.

On the hallway floors, yellow strips of tape direct students to their classrooms. Two-way hallways are divided by three strips of tape pointing to different directions, with a space in the middle that has a large “Do not cross” sign taped on the floor. 

 

Mooney says part of the preparation has been training students and staff to follow new protocols. 

“It’s going to be hard to learn these new rules, because school looks very different than it did,” said Mooney. “We’re going to do a lot of reteaching and pre-teaching. We put out videos already to our students to kind of show them what the school looks like before they come in, and right now we’re podcasting out to the parents to show them what the school looks like so they can see it, too.” 

Doug Rogers, director of construction and facilities, said custodial staff will be disinfecting the classrooms to comply with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The campus normally accommodates 800 students, so the administration hired additional staff to disinfect the building daily. 

 

“They’ll come in about nine o’clock in the morning, and at the end of the day they’ll mist the whole building so it’ll be disinfected, the kids will come in, they get into the homeroom, and they’ll go wipe down handles and touch points all through the school,” said Rogers. 

 

Evening crews will be in charge of detailed cleaning and disinfecting, and they’ll use a hydrostatic mister to disinfect the building. 

Credit Ryan Caron King / Connecticut Public
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Connecticut Public

Sullivan said safety is the primary concern for parents, and the social-emotional impact is the second-most pressing worry. “Not just for students but for all of society, how do we maintain the intrapersonal connection and feeling like we are part of something when we are socially distant, when we can’t smile at each other and we can’t hug each other?” he asked.

It’s especially challenging for students who may be in vulnerable situations, like starting a new milestone or grieving a loved one. Sullivan said they’ll build camaraderie with digital tools. 

“We’re going to try and do it intellectually, we’re going to try and do it virtually through Zoom, we’ll do whatever we can, but it is a serious concern for everybody nationwide and not just school-age students,” he added. 

CREC schools have a mandatory districtwide policy for mask breaks. The plans are designed according to the facilities. At ASI, they’ll go outside after every two hours of instruction for a 30-minute outdoor mask break.

“I mean they’re [students] outside, we are very lucky that we have a very large space to do it in, and it’s very easy to socially distance a minimum of 6 feet. They possibly can go even further because we have such a large campus,” said Mooney. 

Schools across Connecticut began opening this week.

Brenda Léon is a corps members with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.

Brenda León is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Brenda covers the Latino/a, Latinx community with an emphasis on wealth-based disparities in health, education and criminal justice.

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