Reopening, Restricted. New Haven’s elementary schools reopened in January. Not everyone is on board. Kaylee Walsh
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or the first time since they closed in March 2020, New Haven Public Schools opened its doors to students enrolled in Pre-K through fifth grade on January 19, following a reopening plan that Philip Penn, Chief Financial Officer of NHPS, likened to “changing a tire on a car while driving down the highway.” After months of delay, the Reopening Task Force, founded in April 2020 to assess how schools might welcome students back with new safety protocols, settled on a corporate-inspired plan that involves “tiger teams”—a method of dividing up the work amongst smaller groups, according to Penn. “If you look at [reopening New Haven schools] as the only problem, it’s overwhelming,” he explained. “But then if you continue to break that down into smaller and smaller pieces, the challenges become less dramatic.” As the leader of the Facilities and Operations team of the task force, Penn’s focus included drafting protocols for safety inside the schools, including floor plans equipped for social distancing, a face mask requirement, and training guidelines on hygiene in the classroom for staff. Outside the task force, Daniel Diaz, Parent Engagement Coordinator for the district, has worked to include parents in the reopening plans as well, by keeping them informed and involved in public meetings and surveys. Diaz stressed how he––along with the rest of the Youth, Family, and Community Engagement department–– worked to set up helplines for specific needs of families in the district. “We developed a family helpline where parents can actually call and ask questions, even if they needed food, if they needed support with technology, if they needed coats, if they needed computers,” he said. Diaz also explained that additional helplines were developed as needs arose, such as a helpline specifically for homework, and others for IT support and special education. However, according to Diaz, the most severe need among families using the helplines was food. He noted that the district has provided lunch for students learning remotely, by working with local organizations like Arte Inc. and Christian Community Action. “When parents call the family helpline, and tell us they need this, we actually act on it,” Diaz explained. While Diaz did not provide any specific statistics on the usage
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