Virtual Town Hall meeting was Monday
“Our goal is to return to school, 100 percent in person, on September 1, 2021.”
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Sheboy, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Andrea Tejedor and Board of Education President Anne Lawless held a virtual Town Hall meeting on May 24 to talk about the Highland Falls-Fort Mont-gomery Central School District’s 2021-22 school year.
It was watched live by about 15 people, and lasted about 45 minutes. It’s available to view on the school district website, www.hffmcsd.org.
The three discussed the district’s plan — assuming it’s allowed by New York State — to return fully on September 1, with five days of in person instruction for all students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. They are not expecting to have virtual options as they have this school year, with the exception of possible ‘medically fragile’ students. In that case, they noted, it would most likely not be teachers employed by the HF-FMCSD; those children would be taught via Orange-Ulster BOCES staff.
Sheboy said the school district is waiting for guidance on the next school year, but fully expects to open with some physical distancing, daily temperature checks, facial coverings, and protocols like frequent hand washing and sanitizing. He also said the district will keep its higher-than-normal number of custodians to keep up with new cleaning requirements.
The district officials broke down the federal funds that have been or are expected to become available to the district to use to pay for those custodians, summer and after-school programs to make up for any learning loss from the past year, expanded instructional staff, and things like connectivity tools.
And, they answered 11 questions that had been submitted by the community — 10 of those 11 were from Fort Montgomery’s Kristen O’Dell, who was recently elected to the Board of Education and will begin serving her three-year term on July 1.
Her questions ranged from mask wearing and when that would be revisited by the board to when will parents be allowed to be back in the schools to why can’t older children use their lockers to asking how much advocating the district is doing for the loosening of state rules pertaining to all of those things.
Sheboy acknowledged that the answers he was giving to her questions were probably “frustrating”, but noted that they don’t have all the answers because schools have to follow the rules set by the state’s Education and Health Departments.
O’Dell also asked for the number of teachers and staff in the district who are vaccinated against COVID-19. Sheboy said school district employees “have no requirement to tell us that” but guessed that it is a high number.
