Dr. Randy Trani has only served as the Mat-Su Borough School District Superintendent for less than a month, but he’s already been confronted with complex decisions, such as how to safely re-open schools in the fall. The start date for the Mat-Su School system has been pushed back to August 19th, but the plan is to re-open school as normally as possible at that time. Dr Trani explains:
”So we’ve been making some really solid plans for lots of scenarios for school. Right now we planning on opening under green status with enhanced mitigation, to help slow the spread and make sure everything is under control. We’ve been collecting information from parents, trying to be as flexible to meet parents where they are at with their individual family. ”
When asked about enhanced mitigation plans, Dr. Trani listed a number of practices, including more frequent school sanitation, more stringent student hygiene, and social distancing practices within the schools. Although “green status” means many things at school will look very similar to before the pandemic, some things might be a little different.
In the event of an outbreak, or if the Governor issues a mandate limiting the size of gatherings, the school would then move to a “yellow” status and transition some students to less frequent attendance or “at home learning”. For parents, who have concerns right now, their child can still opt to participate online.
”So today registration went live, on-line registration, and I walked through it with a parent here, just so I could watch it from the parent perspective, and there is definitely the spot on there where, if you’re a parent, you can say “no, no, I would rather continue with at home learning” and parents can select that. So we’re trying to respond to parent feedback that we got in some of the surveys.”
The school district is still grappling with how to safely conduct activities, such as band, choir and P.E., and they are waiting on determination from the Alaska State Athletic Association about which fall sports seasons might happen. Superintendent Trani is trying to think creatively about all options.
“Everybody really wants certainty. You know like, “What’s it going to look like going forward.” And I think the thing we need to embrace is flexibility going forward. Because we all want to know what it’s going to be like next year, but I don’t think anybody in the world actually does know.”
What the school district does know, is that the community wants school to be back in session and that they want as many of the student activities to happen as possible. Dr. Trani plans to continue to use creativity to balance community health and make school feel as normal as possible. For KTNA, I’m Colleen Love.
This story was supported in part by a grant from the Mat-Su Health Foundation for Covid Response.
