Havre Public Schools completes survey for use in planning re-opening

Havre Public Schools has completed a survey it will use in planning the re-opening of schools in the fall.

The district sent out a survey about a week ago to the community to hear their thoughts on what re-opening could potentially look like in the fall in the schools, with Wednesday the deadline to respond.

Parent, student and community surveys were available.

“We had really good turnout results — we had 951 parents fill out the survey, 239 students and 115 community members,” Havre Public Schools Interim Superintendent Craig Mueller said.

He said the sets of responses showed higher concern on three of the questions on the six-question survey.

Mueller shared a document displaying a summary of the summary results.

One of those was, “If schools have fewer students in the building at one time and rules are in place to limit contact among students, how would they feel about students returning to school for in-person classes?” was one of the questions.

The community response showed 76.5 percent comfortable or very comfortable with the idea and 23.4 percent uncomfortable or very uncomfortable; parent response showed 81 percent comfortable or very comfortable and 19.1 percent uncomfortable or very uncomfortable, and student response showed 70.3 percent comfortable or very comfortable with 29.7 percent uncomfortable or very uncomfortable.

“If all students and staff have temperature checks each day, wearing masks is encouraged and no visitors are allowed, how would you feel about students returning to school in-person classes,” the survey asked.

The community response was 72.2 percent said they are comfortable or very comfortable with that and 27.8 percent were uncomfortable or very uncomfortable; the parents response showed 75.6 percent being comfortable or very comfortable and 24.3 percent uncomfortable or very uncomfortable, and the student response was 62.5 percent comfortable or very comfortable and 35.5 percent uncomfortable or very uncomfortable.

“Select the scenario that best matches your comfort level at this time,” it said.

The community response of 53.9 percent said they prefer children return to traditional face-to-face school with health and safety rules in place, 24.3 percent prefer children have a blended approach of traditional face-to-face school and distance learning, 12.2 percent prefer children resume distance learning from home and 9.6 percent are unsure at this time.

Parent response showed 53.4 percent saying return to school without all the seclusion rules, 21.7 percent, 9.4 percent and 15.5 are unsure at this time or other.

And 59 percent of students said they prefer to return to traditional face-to-face school with health and safety rules in place, 23.8 percent prefer to have a blended approach of traditional face-to-face school and distance learning and 17.2 percent prefer to resume distance learning.

A re-opening planning team was formed in June consisting of 25 teachers, administrative staff, specialists and board of trustees members who were interested in being part of that team, he said.

That planning team, he said, right now is divided into seven sub-groups and those sub-groups have spent the last two weeks researching and reading articles about what other school districts have done.

He said they will meet Monday and go over the other three sets of results of the survey.

“What I found and looking at the results, which closed last night at 9 o’clock was we got just as much feedback in the open-ended responses as we did from putting together some of the pie charts and looking a little bit deeper into the data — those open-ended responses really give us a sense of people feel,” Mueller said.

He said when looking at the results it looks like the majority of students, parents and the community are in favor of returning to the building in the traditional setting first, then considering some safety measure in place.

Those results are going to be beneficial to them as the schools move forward, he said, adding that as they look at what type of comfortability the community has with the students back in the building and what is the desired approach they would like to see the school take.

Thursday, he said, the school district had a meeting with the Office of Public Instruction to talk about re-opening and what their re-opening plans need to look like.

People who have concerns, questions or would like more information can contact Mueller at the Robins Administration Building at 395-8550 or [email protected].

“We’re just trying to first and foremost the safety of our students and our staff and what is going to be best for our community,” he said.

Gov. Steve Bullock and Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney introduced a plan for the safe and the healthy re-opening of K-12 schools last week.

Cooney said the plan for re-opening school districts has been categorized in three different phases that align with the phases Gov. Bullock’s plan for re-opening the Big Sky.

For example, Cooney said, if the state is in Phase 2 school should follow Phase 2 of this plan.

The plan also includes best practices that schools can use when academics, extracurricular activities, transportation, physical and structural protocols to minimize interactions and crowding, and consider the social, emotional and behavioral health of students, he said.

People interested in reading the full plan can visit https://covid19.mt.gov/Portals/223/Documents/Education%20Final.pdf?ver=2020-07-02-123418-013 .