By Alexis T. Gutierrez
and Lisa Large (guest contributor)

After a false start on February 1st due to snow, DC Public Schools starts Term 3 with some in-person learning at most elementary schools this week. After months of trying to reopen schools, city leaders have allowed each school through their Reopen Community Corps to develop their own plans. As a result some schools in upper northwest are bringing back a large percentage of their students, such as Key Elementary bringing back 75% of their students.

In Petworth and Park View, DCPS elementaries have varying amounts of students coming back depending on the learning model they have chosen. West Elementary will offer no in-person pre-K classes, whereas all other Petworth/ParkView elementaries will. Some schools, like Bruce Monroe, will be offering CARES classrooms in some grade levels in lieu of in-person learning, while Barnard will offer in-person learning options for all grade levels. All schools struggled with trying to balance the number of kids coming back in-person with the size of the virtual classes.

Petworth News has put together a table comparing schools on the other side of the park with Petworth/Park View schools.

It appears that the number of spots and learning models varied significantly between the schools, as has the outreach to parents. Some schools like Truesdell briefed their parents of their learning plan the day seats were offered (January 11th), while others released their plans after seats started being offered. Many schools have had school-wide briefings for parents where they could ask questions, though some, like Bruce-Monroe, have taken a different approach and relied on written communications for the entire school community, and provided briefings for those offered an in-person spot.

All schools will be shifting class rosters around, so parents were notified last week of new teachers. Some schools then had virtual home visits last week, as well as back-to-school nights the first week of Term 3 for families to learn more about their new teachers. While some parents have been pleasantly surprised that they got offered a spot, others, particularly pre-K parents, have been very disappointed in the lack of spots. The pre-K age is particularly challenging for virtual learning and so many parents were hoping for more spaces for that grade level.

Many schools have had many parents decline the offer of an in-person learning space. Reasons range from continuing concern about Covid, no after-care, not wanting to have one sibling in school and another at home, and/or changing their teacher mid-year.

While the Washington Teachers’ Union has continued to express concern that DCPS has not met the terms of the agreement for reopening, the arbitrator found that reopening could occur. The WTU held a briefing early last week to outline the reasons that they felt reopening should not happen yet. The WTU pointed to two studies — one from Princeton and another from a university in Montreal — that said schools and school-aged children contributed to the spread of Covid. The following day, the CDC released new research showing that schools operating in-person have seen scant transmission of the virus with proper social distancing and masking.

The WTU has argued that teachers should not return until they are fully vaccinated. DCPS teachers who will be returning to teach in person started getting vaccinated last week and will return for dose two on February 15th and 16th. According to the Mayor’s January 28th situational update at that time, the vaccination appointment slots for DCPS staff were not full. DCPS is encouraging teachers to be vaccinated, but not mandating it.

The health and safety plans for reopening have been posted on the DCPS website, but the specifics on the number of kids per school or the learning model chosen has not been shared.

Many parents are struggling to understand how DCPS can offer such varying levels of opportunity for in-person learning between its schools. As many have raised already, equity issues exist with this ad-hoc approach. (See Perry Stein’s Washington Post article this weekend.)

If you have experiences you would like to share or updates to offer on the table, please feel free to reach out to alexis@petworthnews.org.