MONROE — As Monroe schools began the fifth consecutive week of full-district virtual learning, parents, community members and staff gathered virtually for a Board of Education meeting Dec. 14.

Much of the discussion during the regularly scheduled meeting surrounded the COVID-19 pandemic and how to continue managing the virus within schools.

Two Monroe couples spoke to the matter, collectively representing students from each of the School District of Monroe’s five schools.

“We have a humanitarian crisis,” parent Bryan Doyle said. “It’s now just unfolding, but it’s not related to the COVID disease directly. It’s loss of jobs, loss businesses, evictions, depression, isolation, healthcare avoidance, and on and on.”

Doyle said that he has seen the downsides of hybrid and full-virtual learning in his own children at Parkside and the Monroe Middle School. He said that other parents are feeling the same way.

“I’m talking to my peers in the community: my neighbors, my friends. I’m also talking to some of my colleagues who work across the country and there’s kind of a unanimous opinion that kids want, families want their kids to be back in school,” he said. “We need to get our kids back in school.”

Doyle was not the only parent to speak for getting kids back in school.

Jesse and Amanda Duff, parents of a freshman, a Northside first grader and an Abraham Lincoln 4-K student, also spoke on the importance of having kids, especially the younger ones, physically in school. 

“I see the effects socially, emotionally and intellectually, especially at the elementary school level,” Amanda Duff said. “I don’t understand how we can even come close to an education for these kids when parents are working and then trying to make sure a child that can’t even read can be educated. You don’t have enough hours in the day for that.” 

The Duffs ended their public comment with the plea that the district “look at a Plan A for at least our elementary students.”

Though public comment does not require that the board respond or have back and forth conversation on the topics, points touched on by the Doyles and Duffs were brought back up later in the meeting for full board discussion.

“I think a lot of our elementary families are struggling,” District Administrator Rick Waski said. “I think a lot of our young learners are struggling… virtual education is not meant for that grade level.”

Moving elementary students fully in-person would not be a change made overnight, as COVID-19 policy and guidelines would have to change to do so.

To implement potential changes by Feb. 1, the board will be discussing and potentially deciding on changes at the Jan. 11 meeting.

About 20% of elementary students in the district are in the fully virtual Plan H. The rest of the students were moved to Plan C beginning Nov. 16 as cases throughout the community continued to rise.

Positive cases, however, are not the only data point that go toward making the decision to close or stay open.

“It’s really the quarantines that lead to some of our staffing issues that we have,” Waski said.

When staff have to quarantine, the district must keep buildings staffed using substitutes. With high volumes of staff in quarantine, it becomes difficult to keep buildings staffed, thus forcing them closed. 

“Most of our periods where we had to go to Plan C…  [were] a result of running short on staffing,” Waski said.

In early December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their quarantine guidelines to offer more options to reduce quarantine length. New guidelines suggest a 10-day quarantine without testing if no symptoms have been reported during the monitoring or a seven-day quarantine that ends with a negative test result. The CDC still recommends the 14-day quarantine period.

School districts throughout the country are reacting accordingly, switching COVID-19 policies to reflect the new guidelines.

Board members were on either side of the debate, with Waski saying that a quarantine length decision would be made no earlier than Jan. 11.

As the school district prepares to head into winter recess, it is still unclear what the new year will bring.

“Right now, we don’t know what kind of COVID-19 activity we’re going to have between now and the new year,” Waski said. “But I think if things remain very much where they are now and are stable during that time, it’s very likely that we would start Jan. 4 in Plan B in all five buildings at all three levels.”