Seen here in an aerial shot, the Berkshire Hills Regional School District has decided to delay a return to in-person learning. Photo courtesy BHRSD

Citing COVID data, Berkshire Hills backs off return to full in-person learning

After a recent period of remote-only learning, the district will transition on Monday, Feb. 1, to a system that will please some and aggravate others.

STOCKBRIDGE — Like many school districts across the state, the Berkshire Hills Regional School District has been on something of a roller coaster ride during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After a recent period of remote-only learning, the district will transition on Monday, Feb. 1, to a system that will please some and aggravate others. Superintendent Peter Dillon signaled at Thursday’s school committee meeting that a planned return to in-person learning could be delayed. And the next day he made it official.

See video below of the Jan. 28 meeting of the Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee. Fast forward to 48:41 for the discussion on reopening the district:

“I was hoping the numbers would be perfect and I would tell you, ‘Here’s the green light. We’re going ahead,'” Dillon told the committee Thursday night.

Dillon said the data on infection rates were “contradictory.” From a countywide perspective, things have improved. The three indicators of daily rate, infection, and positivity are all down. The infection rate, at .77, is at one of the lowest levels over the past year, Dillon wrote in an email to the district community Friday morning. Click here to see the data.

Dillon said the town data and the state reports are more mixed. The rates seemed to be declining district-wide, until recently, when they spiked in Great Barrington, as The Edge reported last week, because of a cluster outbreak in the town’s nursing homes.

In the district’s three schools themselves, there are only a handful of cases. Here are the data Dillon supplied on positive cases at Berkshire Hills:

Dillon said that, only a few weeks ago, there were 12 cases across the district, so there has been substantial improvement. He had hoped to return to full in-person learning by Feb. 1, but after Thursday’s meeting he checked with the state.

“In addition to watching the data, we are also constrained by our ability to fully staff all the schools, as some of our colleagues have documented and approved medical needs which keep them working remotely,” Dillon wrote.

Here is the plan, effective Monday, Feb. 1:

Muddy Brook Elementary School

Four days per week in person

W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School

Remote model in 5th and 6th grades and hybrid in 7th and 8th grades

Note: Dillon explained that “at this time we cannot bring back 5th and 6th grade students in person though we hope to to do so in the near future.”

Monument Mountain Regional High School

Hybrid model in all grades

Berkshire Hills Regional School District Superintendent Peter Dillon

Dillon added that principals will “reach out about a limited number of students who will be in school four days a week at the middle and high school.” Parents do have the option to have their children stay fully remote. Any parent who intends to do so should contact the child’s principal.

“Some of you will be overjoyed with this news and some very upset,” Dillon said. “I encourage you to reach out to me to share your concerns.”

Dillon monitors not only rates in Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge, but in towns that send students to Berkshire Hills, including Otis, Sandisfield, Richmond, Pittsfield, Lenox, Lee, and Sheffield. In addition, during in-person learning, faculty and staff commute daily from other towns in the county, as well as from New York and Connecticut.

The district has been in remote-only learning since Dec. 16. At that time, Dillon noted that the district’s infection rate for those who tested positive and were in school was not high, but even one case can disrupt the model for teaching and learning.

Muddy Brook teacher Bonnie Groeber. Photo via Twitter

At Thursday’s school committee meeting, Bonnie Groeber, a 4th-grade teacher at Muddy Brook, said she had seen students who were upset about not being back at school, particularly at the elementary school, where younger students are even more inclined to struggle with remote learning.

“Students are starting to get very down about not being back at school … as they hear a date and get excited to get back in school and things get changed again,” Grober said. “Parents are emailing me to tell me that their students are going to take an hour off today because the screen time is too much for them.”

“I had a student the other day say, ‘I’m so frustrated. I don’t learn this way,” she recalled.

“The stakes here are very high in every direction,” Dillon replied. “They’re high from an emotional, mental health perspective and a health perspective … This is terrible, right? I’m getting my hopes up, you’re getting your hopes up, everybody wants to be back in school and we want to do that in a way that’s safe.”

Dillon said he will continue to “monitor the data and make shifts as needed.”