Vashon School District moved a step closer to announcing a timeline for opening hybrid education in the district on Monday, following a meeting convened with 25 partners asked to advise on the plan.

Attendees at the meeting included members of Vashon’s Medical Reserve Corps, a representative of Public Health Seattle King County, and School Nurse Sarah Day. Labor leaders representing teacher unions, support personnel and kitchen and custodial workers were also present, as were VISD principals and other administrators.

Items on the meeting’s agenda included COVID-19 activity levels and vaccine availability, as well as a discussion about how more transmissible COVID variants, including the UK strain now known to be present in Washington, might impact plans to re-open the schools.

The topic of re-opening was also discussed at a Jan. 28 board meeting, with three public comments from parents and community members being read that expressed contrasting viewpoints on the topic.

In an email, Superintendent Slade McSheehy told The Beachcomber that VISD did not have a plan in place with Vashon’s Medical Reserve Corps for regular testing of teachers.

“Institute for Disease Modeling’s research indicates that regular testing in schools does not significantly impact disease activity or transmission,” McSheehy said, adding that very few districts have testing programs. “The MRC has been our number one resource for testing and [School Nurse] Sarah Day has worked with them for most of our confirmed employee cases.”

Previously, McSheehy said that the meeting on Monday would result in a “go or no-go” decision by the district on the timeline for the move to hybrid education, but last week walked back that suggestion. Instead, he said, additional meetings with labor groups and school principals would take place prior to a decision.

Labor groups for teachers and support personnel at the school have recently conducted surveys of their members that found that a large percentage of these employees did not feel safe in returning to in-person education prior to being vaccinated.

Some district employees, including some special education teachers and para-educators supporting those teachers, have already been working in-person with small groups of students throughout the pandemic.

But according to VESP, most of their members working in this capacity have indicated that they, too, would no longer feel comfortable working in this setting if more people returned to the building.

Last week, the CDC last week recommended a return to in-person education, saying transmissions of the disease had been low in school settings both in the United States and abroad when strict safety protocols were followed.

The CDC’s endorsement of in-person education did not mention the more transmissible coronavirus variants which have now closed schools in many European countries. But in mid-January, the CDC predicted that the UK strain would overtake other strains in the United States in March.

Currently, only teachers who are 65 and older, or 50 and older and live in multigenerational households, are able to be vaccinated in Washington. Given the high demand and an uncertain supply of vaccines, it is currently unclear when other teachers will be immunized, though teachers 50 years and older are next in line for vaccinations.

However, State Superintendent Chris Reykal recently announced a partnership with Kaiser Permanente which would roll out large-scale vaccine clinics for teachers as soon as they become eligible.

In recent weeks, McSheehy has devised a plan with principals at Chautauqua Elementary, McMurray Middle School and Vashon High School that could phase in four half-days per week of in-person education for elementary school children, with kindergartners possibly coming back into the building as soon as the next few weeks.

Grades 1 to 3, and then grades 3 and 5, would be phased in every two weeks after that, following a review of COVID activity and Department of Health Guidance.

Secondary grades would be phased in after that, but at the Jan. 28 school board meeting, student board representatives Mead Gill and Ella Yarkin both asked the district to allow high-school students to have some type of in-person experience as soon as possible. Both cited conversations with many of their classmates who had told them they were experiencing mental health issues related to the lack of social interaction in the long quarantine. Even a week of school prior to graduation, Gill said, would be helpful.

In other school news, all Vashon students will take part in Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, with Chautauqua’s program taking place from Feb. 1 to 5. At McMurray and VHS, programs will take place from Feb. 22 to 26.

Black Lives Matter at School is a national coalition organizing for racial justice in education. The week of Action — filled with programs and discussions that celebrate diversity and the guiding principles of Black Lives Matter — is endorsed by the National Education Association and was first conceived by teachers in Seattle in 2016.

At the school board meeting on Jan. 28, the board had a first read of a board resolution supporting The Black Lives Matter at Schools Week of Action that will be voted on at the next board meeting.

The resolution, modeled on a resolution written and passed by the Olympia School District, includes language saying the week aligned with VISD’s “stated desire and continued efforts to practice restorative justice to combat disproportionate discipline for students of color and marginalized populations in our schools, diversify the educator workforce, incorporate more culturally relevant curriculum … and increase staffing for counseling and student support services.”

At the board meeting, the discussion of the resolution followed a presentation from members of Comunidad Latino de Vashon, who detailed how VISD could improve its equity practices by forming a more collaborative and inclusive relationship with Vashon’s Latino community (see story p. 1).