With the first day of school just a week away, Springs School families -- many with mixed feelings about the district's reopening plans -- learned this week that students will start the year with a new acting principal and interim assistant principal.
On Monday, the board appointed Christine Cleary acting principal and Maria Mondini interim assistant principal. Debra Winter, the Springs superintendent, confirmed that Eric Casale, the school principal, who has been with Springs since 2005, is taking a leave of absence. Ms. Winter said Tuesday by email that "the notice came in late [Monday] for the leave."
Ms. Cleary was the assistant principal, and Ms. Mondini is a former Springs teacher who later worked as an assistant high school principal in the Southampton and East Hampton School Districts.
"These two individuals will definitely open our school safely and smartly," Ms. Winter said on Monday.
She also said Mr. Casale's leave had already been approved by the school board. It is unclear exactly when the school board did so, as meeting agendas dating back to July make no mention of Mr. Casale's leave.
An email to Mr. Casale was returned with an automated "out of office" reply on Aug. 28. As recently as Aug. 20, Mr. Casale was active on his Twitter account. "We would like to thank the parents and teachers that attended the parent meetings over the past couple of days to discuss our reopening plan for Springs School. We truly appreciate your support and input on this very important decision. Our goal is to open safely and smart," he said on Twitter that day.
Efforts to contact Mr. Casale for comment this week were unsuccessful.
It became clear during Monday's school board meeting that many questions remain over the district's reopening plan. Parents peppered school officials with questions via the YouTube live-stream chat, with Chris Tucci, a parent of four, asking how many Covid-19 cases would cause the district to shift to all remote learning. It is now opening with a hybrid model, with students at all ages attending in-person classes for two days and remote classes the other three.
Ms. Winter did not provide a specific number of virus cases that would force the shift, saying only that the district would be following state Health Department guidance.
The district has not been able to accommodate many parents' requests for a fully remote learning option for the start of school. Ms. Winter said survey responses in July indicated that not enough families favored that type of plan to be able to successfully make it happen. It was only a small handful of kids in each grade, she said, and it didn't make sense to pull a teacher out of the classroom in each grade to provide a dedicated online teacher for those grades.
"If you wanted five days remote, I provided links to resources for homeschooling," Ms. Winter said in an interview last week.
Another consideration is how working parents will handle having their children home three days per week. The district has pledged there would be "meaningful and frequent interaction" with classroom teachers on the other days.
Tatiana Tucci, a parent of four, said "the onus is on us to teach them" and said significant supervision would be needed at the very least. "The parents who are landscapers or clean houses, the ones who are working every day, what will they do?"
Ms. Tucci referred to examples of at-home schedules the school published. For elementary school children, those sample schedules suggest an hour of academic time without electronics -- using tools like Sudoku books and flash cards -- along with family walks, "chore time," "quiet time" for reading, and 90 minutes of academic time using electronics. For the middle school students, it is suggested they read for 45 minutes, access Springs teachers' websites for different subjects, watch the National Geographic or Science Channel programs or documentaries, go for a walk or run or choreograph a dance for physical education, and leave time for "mindfulness."
"By no means was I expecting to go back to normal. I'm not asking for a rocketship," Ms. Tucci said. "They can't put it all on us."
Rebecca Morgan Taylor, another Springs parent and also the executive director of the Project Most program, said she had been hoping the youngest children would be in school five days per week. "I do understand the issues of building space," she said in an interview. "The younger kids need to be in front of their teachers more often than not."
In the current Springs plan, students may go as many as three days without seeing their teacher in person.
Ms. Taylor, who is a former teacher herself, was also not comfortable with the district's decision to require all students to wear masks. Its first version of the plan said masks were required only for third grade and up.
"If they are in a classroom sitting for instruction, socially distanced, they should be able to take their masks off," Ms. Taylor said. "I think it's a lot to ask young kids, especially, to wear masks all day."
Melissa Knight, a Springs parent of two who also teaches fourth grade at the school, said she thinks the district is doing a good job of reopening as safely as it can.
"I think from the parent and teacher side we totally understand there was no perfect solution to this situation," she said. "On every side there is someone who doesn't agree, and they tried to come up with a middle ground. We all have to be understanding of the situation and give the teachers, administrators, and parents a little bit of grace to try to figure it out and make it the best it can be."