WHITMAN — Whitman-Hanson Middle School will be set up as a COVID-19 vaccination center, according to a report on WBZ-TV Channel 4 Wednesday, Dec. 2. Volunteers are being sought to help staff the station and people will be receiving robocalls notifying them of when it is their turn to get the shot.

Fire Chief Timothy Grenno said the desigation was made during the H1N1 epidemic several years ago under a request from the Department of Public Health. About a month ago the DPH asked for modifications to the plans to make them drive-through.

“The Middle School has always been our spot,” he said. “They want us to be ready and be prepared, so that’s what we did and we sent out a press release for nurse volunters to help us staff it, and we’re getting a pretty good response.”

Access and traffic flow as well as remote learning days work well with the state’s requirements, according to Grenno.

Whitman is currently back in the red zone with 62 positives out of 1,228 tests (a 5.5 positivity rate) and Hanson has 33 positives out of 789 (a 4.18 positivity rate) for the week of Nov. 19-26.

Whitman cleared one of it’s three clusters last week, with two remaining, including one at Christo’s, which will remain closed until Dec. 11.

“We’re looking for volunteers right now who want to step up and be a big help,” Interim Town Administrator Lisa Green told the station. The centers will operate in the same manner as drive-through testing sites do now.

Gov. Charlie Baker said, in accordance with CDC guidelines, the focus will first be on high-risk individuals such as health care workers, nursing home staffs and first responders. Those shots could be available as early as next week and it could take until March to inoculate health care workers, according to the report, with the general population not able to receive it until spring.

COVID is also causing some changes to the upcoming special Town Meeting in January.

The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Dec. 1, voted to change the special Town Meeting quorum from the usual 150 to 25 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and hold it in the Performing Arts Center at WHRHS.

“Under the new regulations that the governor announced back in early November, there was a question of whether public settings fell under the new ‘no more than 10 indoors’ [regulation],” said Green. She said it appeared that public government meetings appeared to still cap off at 25 people.

Gov. Baker’s COVID regulations allow towns to reduce town meeting quorums to as low as 10 percent of what town bylaws otherwise require.  Green, however, expressed concern about the effect such a drastic cut would have on important business such as the sewer force main replacement, especially in view of the fact that the Selectmen, Finance Committee and DPW Commissioners would also have to attend.

She advocated placing any reduction at no lower than 25, although she noted that East Bridgewater has eliminated their quorum requirement.

Town Clerk Dawn Varley would have to submit any reduction request to the Attorney General’s office for approval within 10 days.

Town Moderator Michael Seele said he had no objection to the reduction request, but asked what the procedure would be if more than 100 showed up.

“It doesn’t seem likely that we’d get 100 people, but you never know,” Seele said.

Chairman Dan Salvucci said the gymnasium is not likely to be available due to school activities, but Green said it would be free for an early evening session on a Saturday.

Selectman Justin Evans said technical link-ups to other rooms could help if a larger turnout occurred. Right now, Wednesday evenings, Jan. 6, 13, 20 or 27 are now being considered for scheduling. The town has until Dec. 23 to schedule a specific Town Meeting date.

Selectman Randy LaMattina favored pushing it to Jan. 27 out of concern over the recent up-tick in COVID-19 cases in town.

“Sixty days seems like an eternity considering what’s going on with COVID,” he said.

Salvucci questioned whether a four-article Town Meeting warrant required the presence of town counsel, since besides the force main, there are only unpaid bills to be voted. Town counsel is only available on Wednesday evenings during the week, but can also attend a Saturday session. Both he and Evans expressed concern about giving the DPW enough time to bid out the project in the spring.

Selectmen also discussed the burgeoning problem towns and school districts are seeing in fraudulent unemployment claims related to COVID-19. The board approved Green’s request to contract with Unemployment Tax Management Corp., to help keep up with the work.

“We’ve been inundated,” Green said. “They’re coming in in droves, and I was finding that trying to keep up with the numerous requests and paperwork required … I couldn’t keep up with it.”

The state can levy fines if paperwork is processed late. Towns have three days to deal with the notices. Green reached out to East Bridgewater for advice and was told they used UTM, which is also working with Abington and the W-H School District, among other entities being similarly victimized by the fraud. The corporation handles all paperwork (online), appeals, protests, other legal activity and auditing involved in the process. The service would cost Whitman $695 per quarter, Green said.

“For everything that they’re going to provide, it’s really something I strongly recommend that we do,” she said.

The School Committee on Wednesday, Nov. 18 supported the school district’s hybrid learning format in the face of what Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak termed confusion over Gov. Baker’s change of school reopening policy.

The committee agreed to wait until after the December break to make any decision about remote learning based on what data Szymaniak can amass on the potential impact of the proposed changes in that time.

The district will be reactivating its COVID team, as well, to look at the realistic feasibility of bringing students back to school full-time.

Baker urged a move to all in-person education “if feasible” for districts in lower-risk communities moved Szymaniak to ask the Committee to support the hybrid model. He noted some parents have already been abusive over the phone with district staff.

“We want to get our kids back in, but I also want to make sure they’re safe when they’re here and our teachers are safe,” Szymaniak said, noting Baker must determine if remote instruction will be offered at all next year.

“The biggest thing that we’re talking about is feasibility,” Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said. “That’s the question that’s out there in society right now.”

To meet the governor’s urging, evidence is needed that social distancing of less than six feet in school and on buses, is needed, according to Szymaniak.

Ferro noted that the district bus capacity is now 24 students on a 72-passenger bus.

“Their seat is still theirs,” Ferro said in response to Committee member Michael Jones’ question of what to do about families who sign a child up for bus transportation at the start of the school year, but don’t use it. “Whether they take it or not, as a regional school district, we really don’t have a say.”

Ferro said the district may also anticipate a shortage of drivers if COVID causes more illness and assigned seating makes contact tracing easier if a student falls ill.

Committee member Christopher Howard agreed with Szymaniak and Ferro’s approach, but said parents who have changed their mind about sending their child to school on the bus should advise the school district as soon as possible so their child’s seat can be reassigned.

Committee member Dan Cullity said the governor is “way off on this.” While Cullity favors full-time in-person school it is not feasible nor is it logisitically or financially possible right now.

“The governor’s own words were: Every district is going to be different,” Committee member Fred Small agreed. Small pointed to New York City’s announcement that all schools went to remote Nov. 18 this week after a 3 percent positivity rate in COVID tests. Hanson’s is 2.78 percent and Whitman is at 4.71 percent.

There are things at school — like hand-washing reinforcement and easier contact tracing — that is keeping kids safe, said Committee member Hillary Kniffen, who is a teacher, but students are also in the groove of a routine with hybrid instruction right now.

Placing desks at closer than six feet would require the purchase and daily cleaning of Plexiglas dividers and safety must be taken into account, placing accurate contact tracing at risk.

“I like Gov. Baker and I’ve agreed with a lot of what he’s done, but to give a blanket statement that’s going to direct what we do is a challenge for me,” Szymaniak said. “The safety piece for me is huge. The mixed message around three and six feet, educationally … that doesn’t sync when you’re trying to teach a child safety protocols.”

Logistics also present a problem for a district with 13 trailers stuffed with furniture cleared from rooms to accommodate Baker’s six-feet guideline. Facilities Director Ernest Sandland has estimated it would take 1,000 man hours to switch back.

Thanksgiving

Szymaniak also outlined the school district’s holiday travel policy.

Students and staff who planned travel over Thanksgiving to non-low-risk states “and I don’t know if there are any anymore in the country,” must quarantine for 14 days or provide a negative COVIS-19 test administered 72 hours before arrival back in Massachusetts before being allowed to return to school, Szymaniak reported. School Committee member Fred Small participated in the meeting remotely via telephone.

The test must be an FDA/EU-approved molecular PCR test, rather than a rapid test. The alternative is to obtain the test after returning to Massachusetts and quarantining until after obtaining a negative result.

One staff member recently ran into a complication with travel when New York was removed from the low-risk state list over the Nov. 14-15 weekend.

“I anticipate some people traveling,” Szymaniak said. “I anticipate some issues after Thanksgiving.”

He said that, while some districts are mandating quarantines, W-H is not doing so, but rather is hoping people respect the guidelines.

“I hope people are smart,” he said, noting a discussion with students on the issue led to his being asked to remind the public that little kids must still wear masks for dance or karate classes and other activities outside school.

“The second [message] was there are parties going on in Whitman and Hanson,” Szymaniak said. “There are large social gatherings at people’s homes with parents that they are allowed to have. ‘Can you please tell them to knock it off.’”

Students asked him to remind people to be smart about COVID because they want to come to school.

Large social gatherings in Scituate and Cohasset have led to schools returning to all-remote learning for two weeks.

Szymaniak reported there are three students now quarantining in the district and four had tested positive between Nov. 4 and 18.

There were 65 students in “various stages of quarantine” during those two weeks. And two staff members were positive during that period, with one still under quarantine.

Since the start of the school year, 22 students and three staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, Szymaniak said. There were a total of 122 students and 36 staff who had to be quarantined at some point, due to close contact with others testing positive or awaiting test results. Staff quarantines included pre-travel quarantines and those awaiting test results.

“Kids want to be in school,” Szymaniak. “I’m just asking people to do the right thing.”

There are already 521 students in remote learning by parental choice throughout the district, which averages between $2,500 and $5,000 per pupil if the district had to pay for the program.

“My concern is more parents are going to choose to move to remote, if we move to an in-person model, and we won’t be able to afford that,” Szymaniak said. There are 3,583 students who attend classes on in-person days within school buildings now, along with 38 out-of-district students.

Last year there were 33 home school students in Whitman and Hanson. In 2021 there are 96 signed up.

“I’m hoping some parents see, as we turn the corner, if we’ve contained [COVID] in our hybrid model,” he said. “There’s no student-to-student contact in terms of positive cases in the school yet.”

Szymaniak said he is hopeful the hybrid model has helped with that. Cases in the district have centered on a youth hockey cluster and a birthday party involving remote students or parents had tested positive.

HANSON — The Hanson De-Regionalization Feasibility Committee has voted to disband because its mission to investigate the possibility of dissolving the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District is beyond its capacity.

The Board of Selectmen heard the decision as part of an update on the committee’s work during its Tuesday, Nov. 17 meeting at which they authorized Town Administrator John Stanbrook to explore the cost of hiring a consulting firm to take over the work.

“While we have very skilled, passionate and dedicated people on this committee that have been working tirelessly, the intricacies of a valid feasibility study are beyond our varied skill set, especially when acquiring the necessary data has become difficult and, at times, impossible,” committee member Kim McCoy read from a letter from the panel, which has been meeting since Sept. 23.

The committee has recommended that Selectmen hire an unbiased consulting firm that would have more authority to obtain the information needed to make a legally, fiscally and educationally informed decision.

“After facing multiple roadblocks in obtaining the necessary documents to prepare financial reports and other analysis, and after analyzing the level of detail in the East Brookfield feasibility study — which is a 27-page document — it’s become apparent that our volunteer, part-time, citizen group is not equipped for a task of this complexity,” McCoy read from the letter. “There are too many components that have to be considered in order to make an informed recommendation about de-regionalization for a group such as ours.”

The committee has “reviewed various documents and brainstormed ideas of what information and documents we would need” to fulfill its mission of making a data-driven decision on whether it makes sense for Hanson to split from the district.

They acquired some documents from the district, but the information was not complete enough to form a “full picture,” of the cost of educating Hanson students within the district according to McCoy.

The committee was also unable to obtain Pembroke’s feasibility study involved in successful de-regionalization efforts. It was able to obtain that paperwork from East Brookfield, however.

“Please know the committee is not making this recommendation lightly and without a heavy heart,” McCoy read.

The committee also pointed to the audit of the school district Hanson and Whitman have funded as a source of important information, but Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett questioned how much information from it would be useful and how much a consulting firm would cost the town.

Selectmen Jim Hickey said he would approach Stanbrook to issue either an RFP or obtain at lease three bids. Hickey was the Selectmen’s representative on the De-Regionalization Feasibility Committee.

“These people [on the committee] are dedicated and we’re trying, but the last two times that it actually worked was in East Brookfield and in Pembroke, and they both had [consulting] firms that did this,” Hickey said, estimating the cost of the entire process would run in the millions of dollars. “For seven people, no matter how dedicated they are and how much time they put in, we just can’t give it what it deserves.”

FitzGerald-Kemmett said the decision makes sense because the volunteers have full-time jobs and lives, suggesting the consulting firm could work with the de-regionalization committee.­­­­

“Know we know what we don’t know,” she said.

McCoy reported that the Pembroke consulting firm is no longer in business, but the firm East Brookfield used is and the committee has reviewed its website.

“You guys still may be needed if we’re ever able to hire a firm,” Selectmen Chairman Kenny Mitchell said.

Hickey said the approval process is too far away after that to venture any guesses.

“We just want to get a price on what it’s going to cost,” he said. “These guys are champing at the bit just to get answers.”