Reopening of EO schools is addressed

EAST ORANGE, NJ — On Wednesday, Jan. 19, East Orange Mayor Ted Green hosted a virtual town hall meeting with special guests East Orange Superintendent of Schools AbdulSaleem Hasan, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum & Instruction Anita Champagne, Assistant Superintendent of Operations Deborah Harvest and Director of Special Education Tonya Hardin Santos. They discussed the current health and safety of students reentering their schools in light of the outbreak of the omicron variant of COVID-19.

“As you’re aware, we’ve just reopened the schools on Tuesday (Jan. 18), and that it was very difficult in December to make that decision, but as we started to see the climate in New Jersey going a different direction with the positive cases, we had to make a decision, as a leadership team, to delay the opening of schools and push it out until Jan. 18,” Hasan said during the meeting. “The students came back and it was phenomenal … and they couldn’t wait to get back to the school, so they can attend their sports programs, extracurricular activities, pursue their academic goals, etc.

“But we want to make sure, as families send their kids back to school, that they’re healthy, complying with CDC guidelines and, if your children are sick or if there is something going on, please keep your kids home,” he continued. “We’ve done an amazing partnership with the city and with the county to make sure that kids are getting tested and vaccinated. That’s important, and we’re strongly recommending to the community to really get out there, so we can reach herd immunity, so we’re not impacted so much by this virus. I’m very thankful at this time. Our buildings are open and we want the kids to come to school and we want to give them some level of normalcy, as much as possible, in the pandemic.”

In the event of an unexpected outbreak once again where schools must close and go virtual, Hasan recognized it would be Harvest who works with contact tracing, in compliance with CDC guidelines; Champagne who focuses on instruction and communication, as well as Hardin Santos and Christina Hunt, the business administrator of the East Orange School District, who have done amazing work behind the scenes.

“On the drop of a dime, if the numbers go in another direction, you’ll receive a communication from the superintendent and my team. We can transition to hybrid,” Hasan said. ”As you’ve looked on the website, Ms. Champagne has already put together with the team a schedule of how, if we had to switch to a hybrid scenario, kids would come to school on an A and B schedule. We know how to do it because we’ve had that experience last year. So we’re just really thankful we’re in this space. We’re going to continue to move forward. We’re doing the right thing.”

Champagne also informed parents about some of the things the team has been doing.
“Ultimately, the goal is, whether we are virtual or in person, that we’re aiming toward providing quality instruction,” Champagne said during the meeting. “I must say that it takes the effort of everyone. This is truly a time where the village matters. Often, what you will see is, we’re offering virtual workshops to our parents and after-school programs, so, even in those two weeks that we came back and we had to go remote, we still did after-school programs virtually for those 10 days, just to make sure that instruction is still being provided and that the support is there.

“I know that we are all fearful out here, but the biggest fear is the impact this virus is going to have on education and to our children,” she continued. “So when it means getting up in the morning at 8 a.m. and still logging on virtually, please make sure that our remote days are looked at as regular days and we understand that instruction has to take place. We were fortunate enough, through some of the CARES funding, to be able to move to a learning management system that allows us to communicate with teachers, parents and students daily, should there be a situation where, if your child is at home because of quarantine or hybrid, they can go on to that Schoology page so they can update it.

“We, as a team, as a department and as a school district, are being innovative, and, if there’s another way we can get the information out to our students, then we’re trying to get that information there.”