WHITMAN — The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Aug. 11 decided to seek a joint meeting with the School Committee and district officials on the school budget assessment issue within the Regional Agreement.

Selectman Randy LaMattina suggested the discussion in open session, as it had been discussed that way by the School Coommittee, on Thursday, Aug. 6 — as well as on Facebook. The School Committee had voted 7-3 to table the issue.

“Obviously, this is something that has drastically affected our two towns,” LaMattina said. “Over the last six or seven months now, we’ve talked about partnership.”

He said the last budget process was part of the effort to try to preserve that partnership, and he was seeking a sense of the board’s opinion on the “obvious issue” that will hang over the partnership between two towns and school district until it is properly addressed.

The issue he takes up now, LaMattina said, is that through documents uncovered by Assistant Town Administator Lisa Green over the last couple of years, and a statement from a recent Regional Agreement committee illustrates that nothing points to actual malfeasance.

“Why [the assessment issue] was never discovered? I don’t know,” he said. “The talking point has been, ‘We never knew.’ I thoroughly disagree with that statement that somebody did not know. … Unfortunately we didn’t know about this and, when I say we, I mean the towns of Whitman and Hanson.”

LaMattina noted School Committee member Fred Small asked for a third-party investigation, including the Whitman and Hanson Select Boards. He concurred, not out of a goal of seeking financial retribution, LaMattina said, but to obtain a proper explanation to the towns and accountability to the taxpayers.

“One member of the School Committee made some statements [Aug. 6] as if current sitting Selectmen had covered this up,” LaMattina said. “I think that is an aggregious statement. I think this board has been at the forefront of trying to find an answer to this.”

The School Committee on Thursday, Aug. 6 discussed the issue toward the end of a lengthy meeting centering on the school reopening plan.

Small had moved that Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak be empowered to collaborate with the two Select Boards and the District’s legal counsel and town counsels, if needed, to “contact and work with the appropriate investigative authority … in order to determine if there was any impropriety or malfeasance concerning the methodology of the Regional School’s assessment over the past several years.”

School Committee member Dawn Byers asked if he had a time period in mind, to which Small suggested perhaps 2013 forward.

“What I’m hoping to accomplish here is we would have a third party that would be looking into the assessment situation and we can finally be able to get an unbiased assessment of what had occurred, be able to decide where we go from there, and close the door and move on.”

School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes noted that, as of the Aug. 6 meeting no others had been contacted about the motion.

School Committee member Christopher Howard suggested a third party, perhaps a law firm “with nothing to do with this” be hired to look into it.

He said it should not be limited to the state and suggested it might not be the best course of action to have the state do that.

“I think it requires some additional thought,” Howard said.

Hayes suggested the motion be amended to require the boards turn over all pertinent documents to any investigators who might be looking into the issue, rather than empowering the superintendent.

“I consider our superintendent to be an unbiased third party, because whatever happened, happened before the current administration,” Small said.

School Committee member David Forth said he would not consider any party involved in the issue to be completely unbiased.

“I think we should take more time with this,” he said, suggesting another meeting in which the committee could focus on it more and obtain more documentation. He also said any decision to investigate should come as a formal vote.

School Committee member Christopher Scriven agreed with Forth and Howard, questioning the ultimate objective, which Small said was closure.

Forth, who said he has already made inquiries with the state inspector general and the Attorney General’s office about how such a probe would move forward, asked if the Committee would be able to move forward if “the people who caused the problem are continuing to be part of a future discussion, whatever that may be.”

He argued that the there has been so much focus on COVID-19 that, there hasn’t been enough time to look into the assessment issue. New member Hillary Kniffen argued that, now that a budget has been approved, it is time to move forward.

Scriven agreed that the issue can’t be passed over in the hope the issue would just go away.

“I just think the divisiveness is not going to lead to good,” she said.

School Committee member Dan Cullity said the investigation would not be about budget or which methodology was used, but about what happened along the way “either deceiving, hiding, doing whatever” in the past.

“We can’t go back and fix any of that,” Cullity said. “You have to find your history to make sure you don’t repeat it.”

Howard leaned toward a discussion in executive session before sharing the information with the public, while Forth favored an open session for that discussion.

“When we’re done, we owe it to the public to have everything transparent,” Howard said. “I just don’t know how to get everything out on the table publically without there being legal ramifications, which is our responsibility to understand.”

LaMattina on Aug. 11 called for a public meeting in which the issue is aired out and a third-party investigation is possibly authorized.

Selectman Brian Bezanson agreed, also arguing — like Small at the School Committee meeting — that both towns need closure.

“We owe it the taxpayers to find out what happened and to remedy it so it can’t happen again,” Bezanson said. “Was it a mistake? Was it incompetence and then a cover-up? Who knows?

He said an investigation by the state inspector general or other independent agency to determine why Whitman paid $4 million more than they should have.

Selectman Dan Salvucci agreed, but was concerned if they were going over the School Committee’s heads. Selectman Justin Evans expressed concern about it turning into a proxy fight, preferring to see all three boards come together in a public meeting.

“We have 10 [School Committee] officials,” said Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski. “It’s their issue. So I have some hesitancy to take the ball and run with it.”

He said things he would like to see, but are not likely to, are the schools admitting the error and Hanson to admit Whitman carried them all those years.

“Maybe that’s what we’re looking to get,” LaMattina said. “We’re looking to say, ‘You wronged us,’ and through that have accountability.”

That accountability can ultimately rebuild the partnership, he said.

In other business, Whitman Selectmen on Aug. 11 reviewed Lynam’s job description and the process for hiring a new Town Administrator as he prepares to retire.

If the town opts to go with a search committee, he strongly suggested the board keep it small, with two Selectmen, another town official — he recommended the treasurer-collector — the assistant superintendent of schools and a citizen at-large or two. If the board does not want to use a committee, someone is going to have to coordinate with Paradigm, the search contractor on developing candidates, Lynam said.

LaMattina said the board is strong enough to make that decision, and that is the kind of work they were elected to do. He envisioned that the company would supply the board with three-to-five candidates to interview.

“We’re the people that are dealing with it constantly, and I don’t remember being asked to be on the search committee for the superintendent,” he said. Bezanson and Salvucci agreed.

Lynam said he believes Selectmen are fully capable of making the decision without a committee, if that is the direction in which they want to go.

The board decided to have the consultant narrow the applicants to a final group of the best three-to-five for them to interview. Lynam said it could take up to the end of September. While he used October as a target date for retirement, he would consider staying on until the search is concuded.

The School Committee on Thursday, Aug. 6 unanimously approved a hybrid reopening plan “for the students who decide to come to school” in Whitman-Hanson.

The first day of school was also pushed back to Tuesday, Sept. 15. The school year has been trimmed to 170 days, with snow days becoming remote learning days.

School officials recommended a hybrid model, because there would not be adequate funding for a fully in-person model under current pandemic requirements.

Social-emotional learning is also more feasible in a hybrid plan than with remote learning alone.

“Parents, if they are not comfortable at any point, can take their students out of school and take our remote learning option,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jeffrey Szymaniak said.  “Whatever we put out today, we could pivot — because of an uptick locally, or an uptick in the Commonwealth of the virus.”

While the meeting was held in person at the high school library, a public audience was not possible due to continuing state limitations on crowd size at public gatherings. The public was asked to email any questions to the meeting via joshua.torrey@whrsd.org.

“Our reopening plan is going to take some time,” said Szymaniak, noting there is a backlog on orders for Chromebooks across the country due to delays with U.S. Customs because of some companies’ potential child labor issues.  “The overarching concept is to make sure our schools are safe for both our staff and our students.”

He said the district puts students’ physical and social-emotional health and academic well-being in the forefront.

Szymaniak presented options for remote hybrid and in-person learning options to the committee for consideration.

“Teaching and learning takes precedence over this,” he said. Procedures for the main office and transitioning to passing between classrooms in the hallways must also be developed as well as for eating and drinking water and mask breaks.

Health rooms and areas where students might have to quarantine are also being planed.

“Our classrooms are going to be very different from anything we’ve seen in the 21st Century,” Szymaniak said, noting the library tables set up in rows for the committee in a way replicated what those classrooms would look like. He kept his mask on while speaking to demonstrate what teachers must be doing when speaking in class.

The district is recommending those desks be spaced six feet apart, which permits about 15 desks per room. The state recommends three feet, but W-H school officials were not comfortable that enough space was provided between students by that distance.

Students must also be aided through the trauma of the abrupt loss of a structured learning environment since March. Enrichment programs such as after-school activities, art, music, phys ed, athletics and the like are being reviewed to determine how they can be offered or if they will be possible.

Nurse Lisa Tobin is in contact with the Mass. Department of Public Health almost daily.

Noting social media conversations about why Commissioner of Education Jeffrey C. Riley didn’t just provide a plan for schools to adopt, Szymaniak said Riley wanted superintendents and school committees to have local control over learning environments due to differing levels of COVID across the state.

“We are W-H, and we are going to do what we feel is best for the students of Whitman and Hanson,” Szymaniak said. “We’ve stolen other ideas from other districts, that’s what good teachers do, but we have put together a plan for us.”

Comprehensive plans that were due Monday, Aug. 10 are non-binding.

The four possible models were: a return without restrictions; in-person learning with new safety requirements; a hybrid model or remote learning.

The fully-person model includes new classroom configurations, safety equipment and schedule changes. The state requires all districts to develop a hybrid model in case they are not able to bring all students back to school. Alternating schedules is one possible way to accomplish this. Masks and/or face coverings, physical distancing, more attention to hand hygiene and the creation of a COVID-19 isolation space are required for in-school instruction.

Remote learning is a routine that was done since March, with important changes to how students interact with teachers. Elementary grades would work on student instruction from 8 a.m. to noon; middle school instruction from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and high school students working from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. instruction — with a maximum of seven hours of work, including homework per day. Attendance will be taken, grades will be issued and there will be more accountability than in the spring.

“The feedback we’ve received, especially with some of the older students, the later they could go, the better,” Szymaniak said. “They were more engaged in the afternoon than they were in the morning.”

In a hybrid model, two cohorts of students would be spit into Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday in-person learning with Wednesdays used as a virtual instruction day in which teachers report to buildings to teach via devices. The district will be moving off the Zoom platform to Google Classroom or Google Meet.

“We are physically going to have a challenge transporting kids anyway, but trying to transport two cohorts in a day …” Szymaniak said. The first group would have to start on the bus as 6:05 a.m. and the last bus route would finish at 6:45 p.m. Students would be assigned cohort positions by family.

“We are asked to sort of do the impossible,” Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said. “Everybody we’ve talked to said, ‘This is brand new, this is different, but it can be done.’”

Ferro stressed the remote plan, meanwhile, is geared to a situation where the entire district would be forced to go to a remote plan.

“When your students are not in school on their cohorts, they will be face-to-face, there will be work that’s done, and that’s what’s pivotal about that Wednesday check-in, because you reteach to the students you’ve seen,” Ferro said. “You can pre-teach or you have the ability to work on things like social-emotional learning, you have the ability to work on things like citizenship, you have the ability to work on things kids need that they might miss in the traditional five days.”

Szymaniak said parents, teachers and administrators alike are all dealing with heightened anxiety over the new school year.

Special ed

Special Education Director Lauren Mathieson said, regardless of what plan is approved for all students, DESE is asking districts to prioritize students with the most complex needs — and try to offer up to full-time services for those students.

“While everyone was affected by being on remote [learning], there is definitely a certain population of our students that was disproportionately affected,” she said. “There are students in this district that just cannot learn on a computer screen.”

Whether because they are either still learning English or have a  learning disability, remote learning harbors obstacles for these students.

Preschool and kindergarten level special needs; learning disabled students who send the majority of their day in a sub-separate program; English language learners; and economically disadvantaged students (on a case-by-case basis) or who may be homeless are all included in the prioritized population.

Lack of internet connectivity is a concern about the last group. School officials are also planning to meet with representatives of the YMCA about potential childcare or virtual learning sites to help families who have to work.

Structures for socially distant cafeteria and gym protocols will also be included.

“The concept of movement in a school is going to be a little bit greater as the child gets older, because that is the makeup of a high school schedule,” Ferro said. “Younger grades, it’s a lot of teachers might have to move from class to class, the cohort stays — except for phys ed or the movement to the cafeteria, which is unavoidable.”

At the high school, principal Dr. Christopher Jones is working on a passing schedule to address concerns.

Facilities

Facilities Director Ernest Sandland outlined how the schools are being cleaned and prepared for the school year, no matter which plan is used.

He said that on July 22, DESE provided “roadmap to an adventure we’ve been on since the kids were out of school,” regarding health of facilities.

“We were pretty much working on those early on,” he said. Repair work on windows at Hanson’s Indian Head and Hanson Middle schools was done last October. Air movement in buildings has been a major concern for DESE.

Mask breaks for students also required designation of an area of the Indian Head playground for that. Entrance controls and isolation space in the nurses’ office at schools have also been created.

HVAC systems, however, are the “magilla we’re looking at right now,” according to Sandland. “Right now the important thing is for us to get air ventilation into those [300-plus district] classrooms.”

On Wednesday, Aug. 19 professionals will be brought in to train staff on touch points and what has to be cleaned during the day when students and staff in the building and a hygienist will test cleaning crews on how well they follow the protocols.

After all the cleaning and ventilation work is done, desks in classrooms will be reconfigured according to physical distancing requirements. Storage will have to be found for extraneous items from classrooms.

Health

Head Nurse Lisa Tobin reviewed protocols for students and staff who either become ill with COVID-19 or symptoms of it, including advising that anyone not feeling well stay home.

“The attendance police are not going to get you,” Szymaniak said.

Adjacent, but separate, rooms are being set aside for children experiencing symptoms in school so they have access to the nurse. Both towns’ boards of health have already done a walk through.

As Tobin has been shifted to a district-wide post to deal with the issues of the pandemic, a replacement, part-time nurse will be appointed at the high school to take care of preschool pupils. Two float nurses will be added to cover when another school’s nurse is absent, as well as a CNA for supervision of the medical waiting rooms

“I would rather have more than less at this point, and if we have to pull back in January, we can pull back,” Szymaniak said. “I don’t want to have a nurse’s office uncovered.”

The commissioner’s office has been concerned about what would happen when a school nurse is absent, he said.

Tobin said that, if a teacher sends a student they suspect is showing COVID symptoms to the nurses office, a nurse will be alerted and can meet the student at the door for an assessment to decide if the student will go into the medical waiting room until they are picked up by a parent.

The student will then be required to see a physician, and if tests positive, contact tracing can be done in that cohort of students. If they test negative, the student may return to school after 24 symptom-free hours. If a family opts against having their child tested, the child must stay home for a two-week quarantine.

Szymaniak said that, like the call made to change graduation plans, the plan accounts for family members potentially spreading COVID in their household and unwittingly compromising other students at the school.

Transportation

Bus drivers will wear masks and will provide adequate masks for children who get on the bus without a mask. Szymaniak also wants to put a monitor on elementary buses to monitor physical distancing.

Buses will be wiped down between runs with a complete disinfection at the end of the day.