We're discussing the Clark County School District's plans to reopen schools for in-person teaching.

That's this week on Nevada Week.

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(Kipp Ortenburger) On March 1, Clark County School District schools are set to reopen via a hybrid model limited to pre-kindergarten through third grade.

The students can either opt for a hybrid two-day, in-person class and three-day distance education combo or a continuance of the current full five days of distance learning via virtual instruction.

In addition, CCSD's Board of Trustees voted to reopen schools for quote, "high need" students in small groups.

We'll unpackage key pieces of both reopening plans this week.

We'll also examine what data is informing these reopening discussions and planning and what safety and COVID spread precautions look like.

And finally, how ready the District is to carry out a much more complex school day.

Also, with encouraging COVID trends, recent CDC and White House recommendations and a relaxing of state restrictions, what's the potential for expanding reopening all the way to full instruction?

We'll discuss this and cover the top-of-mind things you, as parents, neighbors and also community leaders need to know.

To discuss all this, please welcome Dr. Jesus Jara, Superintendent of Schools at CCSD; Dr. Monica Cortez, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Division at CCSD, and Josh Chesnick, Director of Facilities Management at CCSD.

We want to talk about the reopening plans here.

Dr. Jara, I want to go to you first.

I'm going to ask you a question you've probably been asked 100 times, why just pre-K to 3rd grade, but I'll try to put it in a different context given that news changes so fast in this COVID era, and we have had encouraging news.

We've had maybe some discouraging news too, but let's go to the encouraging news first.

Let's talk about test positivity rates are down.

We see our state is slowly reopening.

The CDC has revised their recommendations.

I haven't seen a lot of changes in their guidelines, but we have a little bit more encouraging language around reopening.

I want to ask you, back to the hybrid model and who we are focusing on, the grades we're focusing on, are priorities changing or is the refocus changing in any way beyond what we currently have with our pre-K to our 3rd grade population?

(Dr. Jesus Jara) Well, first of all, just thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to be here and my colleagues who are here with me; glad to really share with you where we are.

You know, excited to see that positivity has been going down, which is really promising for the community, and I always say it's so important for everybody to understand that we have been monitoring these numbers almost for 12 months.

It's not something that we're monitoring now; we have been monitoring for 12 months.

Monica and the team, Dr. Cortez and the team have been in close contact with the Southern Nevada Health District.

So that's one of the things, that this is not something that is new to us.

We have been seeing the trends going down.

So why pre-K-3?

I mean, that's the question everybody asks when we have a pre-K-12 system.

To me, when you look at the needs of our pre-K-3 where you need that social interaction, that social support in the classroom for our babies, for our kids, it was to me somewhere where I could start as a small pilot, and I say pilot loosely.

It's to start trying it because they're younger.

The kids are able to social distance, you know, and be able to provide enough space in the classroom, and that's what we were seeing to me as well.

We were seeing that enrollment was dropping off.

We saw that parents decided to keep their kids at home, obviously to be able to support them.

So to me that was what made sense.

Now, last night as you saw the governor, you know, obviously with this directive 37 and 38, I think, you know, the right decision.

Everything at the state level is getting better.

Now as we have done since March of 2020, now what do we do?

How do we pivot as a school system to offer more opportunities for more kids?

So proud of the work that our teachers are doing, so proud of the work that this team that, you know, a couple of them are here that now are starting to last night diving into the directive.

I have a meeting this afternoon to see what's the recommendation, because now we have to now pivot to open up more, keep more and more grades, work with the school board, work with the state superintendent to see how we can, you know, bring more of our students into face-to-face instruction.

-You mentioned that is the plan, and we are in kind of this pilot phase here.

Is this a quick turnaround?

I mean, can we see quick expansion where we open up pre-K to 3rd grade for, you know, several weeks let's say, and then all of a sudden we're looking at expanding to more grades?

And is that the plan, that it will just kind of go up more grades?

-Well, you know, the plan that I had prior to yesterday was to start expanding upwards, right?

But now it has gone to a pre-K-12.

So now that's one of the things that we're looking at to see.

And a quick turnaround?

You know, one of the things that we got to remember in the community, we operate 1,700 buses.

There are 1,700 bus routes that we-- my transportation department has done an amazing job of how can we now reroute kids, right, to provide the bus services?

How many, because I don't want to-- you know, this is not going to be mandatory.

I want to make sure that the public understands there's going to be that choice.

We know there's going to be families and there's going to be students that want to stay home.

So as a school system, we have to provide that distance education for children that don't want to come to school.

So it's not as easy as a quick turnaround.

I mean, my principals, who I have the full faith that they will be able to deliver.

I have full confidence that they will.

They need about four weeks.

We have master schedules.

We operate-- and last year, you know, I'm going to tell you, last year we distributed and fed, you know, 40-- I think the number was 48 million meals.

So it's not a quick turnaround, and 1,700 bus routes, meals, feeding all our kids, how do we do this in this COVID space?

It's going to take a few weeks to get this going.

But we're excited.

-I want to come to you-- sorry, Dr. Jara-- I want to come to you, Dr. Cortez, and let's talk a little bit about the data.

As Dr. Jara mentioned, the parent surveys here, parents that are opting for the hybrid model and parents that are opting of course to stay in distance education for five days.

I wanted to ask you specifically, can you give us an idea when we segment that data, are there geographic pockets or is anything broken down by low, moderate income or any other demographic to show there is a predominance of those that are opting out and want to be in distance education for a continuance here?

(Dr. Monica Cortez) That's a great question.

I actually don't have the data of the specific students that is there in our data department; however, I can tell you that we have a response of all students wanting to return in all different areas at different percentages.

Overall it's about 50, 60% return rate in-person for hybrid.

There isn't anything that in regards to special education or health services that stands out as a community that is not looking to return.

That is an outlier.

-Dr. Jara, I want to ask you more specifically about this too.

There's a CDC report that came out in July of 2020 that said that persons of color are less likely to want to engage in in-person schooling.

Again, compared to white populations, they cite trust and safety things.

If we look at some of our person-of-color populations and we go back to some of the data of grades during the fall, we see maybe the biggest disparities in English language learners and black populations more than anything.

Do you have any information on the data again on the parent survey side?

Are those same populations again opting to be in an in-person school environment or the distance education completely five days a week?

-No.

I think one of the things that when we look at our data, it's very important to say it's sporadic across the district because we see some school communities that, you know, want to stay home; they're seeing that this is successful.

Then we have other communities within our suburbs that want to be in face-to-face instruction.

So I wouldn't say it's looking at race or ethnicity.

It's really more depending on the school, and I'm glad that Josh is here.

I had a conversation with a building principal that only saw that about 500 kids and only about 150, 160 want to come back to face to face.

But it's an older building going through a renovation, you know, right now at this point so parents have opted to stay at home because the instruction is working.

So 360 schools, it really depends on the community and how successful distance education is looking at the economy and when parents are at home and not working, they're able to help.

So there's a lot of variables to take into account.

Now, I'm not saying that the CDC numbers are not accurate.

I mean, one of the things that we also are concerned about is-- which was a variable to come into a face-to-face somehow-- was our grade distribution.

But that was just because-- think about what we are: Fifth largest district in the country.

Not everybody in the past was trained to really do distance education.

We've done that.

Our teachers are doing amazing things in the classroom-- very proud of the work they're doing-- but it's just not working for everybody.

So you got to look at the data, but then you now start looking at the very specific numbers and data points at our schools to try to help.

-Dr. Cortez, let's talk a little bit more about the mental health aspects of this too.

We've seen an increase in suicide of course, we've gotten some national attention related to that.

The District is putting in an early warning system to track kind of how students are doing.

There's been 3,100 alerts the last time reported.

Let's fast forward to January and the Board of Trustees approves small groups of students that are the highest risk, highest need, to be able to use school facilities.

Can you give us some more insight on exactly what that program is and what that actually entails?

-All right.

That's a great question.

That program is unique to each school.

It really depends upon the plan that was developed with the school's MLT plan, the principal's input as well as other staff in creating what are the needs at that site.

So while many schools were looking at social emotional learning needs, there were some that were focusing as well on academics, and those plans are being reviewed and developed with the region superintendents at this time, and then that communication will be shared out.

So it really is based on the unique needs of the schools to help the students re-enter the sites.

-Let's transition to the reopening plans and take a little bit of a deeper dive.

I want to get kind of an idea of key things that parents need to know here.

Josh, let's talk about facilities first.

I think that is one big concern of parents right now is how safe, how clean are ventilation systems of course is a big question.

I've been plying the social media parent sites and that comes up quite a bit.

Give us an idea of where facilities are in preparation for these elementary schools to open.

(Josh Chesnick) Thank you.

We've been working to, as you mentioned, get the elementary schools primarily, get them ready for operation, and it's been a multi-pronged approach.

We've had to take a look at the square footage of the classrooms and complying with those minimum or maximum occupancies given to us by the state.

As Dr. Jara alluded to, those recently changed.

Also the spacing of desks so the students are far enough away from each other, socially distanced for that.

There is, as you mentioned, mechanical ventilation systems, looking at those to make sure that we have enough outside air intake so there's good circulation within those classrooms, and within it, we have what's called a sick room.

So if a child becomes symptomatic during the day while they're in school, they're taken to this specific room, and those rooms have been equipped with ionization systems to again add another layer to the cleanliness of that space.

On the custodial side, we've standardized our procedures across the District and created three different levels of cleaning.

There is the daily cleaning that's going to occur, which is typical to what is currently occurring in the schools, but we'll begin with an increased emphasis on touch surfaces.

Also, in between the hybrid plan, between those cohorts, there will be an opportunity for some more enhanced cleaning using products that will be more effective and with less of a dwell time.

And then if we do have a case of a confirmed positive COVID case, we will implement an electrostatic Clorox 360 product that helps us clean and disinfect areas quicker.

So we've really taken a look at all areas of the facility and tried to prepare and help the students and the parents and the teachers and all the staff feel comfortable about being in that space.

-Dr. Cortez, Josh mentioned if we do have a positive case, I want to come to that.

Let's talk a little bit more specifically about the COVID mitigation pieces of the plan itself.

If you were to have an outbreak, and maybe we need to classify what an outbreak is for a school first off.

But if you were to have an outbreak, what are the protocols then all the way through to potentially closing the school, I would assume?

-Absolute great questions, and those are probably the most important at our forefront, right, about re-entering these buildings not only for our students and our staff.

The first one is our contact tracing and finding out who has been in the closest proximity within six feet to that individual.

Then they begin to work in a partnership with the Southern Nevada Health District, and really it is a case-by-case basis based on the individuals who are impacted, confirmed positive, exposed, and then in a partnership with our staff and Southern Nevada Health District, we determine if it's an individual situation where those specific exposed individuals are placed in quarantine, if it becomes a large classroom, or worst case scenario, a large school closure.

All of that is determined in partnership with not only CCSD leadership but also Southern Nevada Health District based on those guidelines from the CDC.

-Dr. Jara, testing is a big piece.

A lot of education experts and advocates have said that is probably the capacity piece of this COVID mitigation that is so challenging, the most challenging for schools particularly.

As you mentioned we're dealing with one of the biggest school districts in the country.

Do you feel we can keep up with what our testing rates need to be?

-Well, you know, I'm going to tell you, the work that Dr. Cortez, working in conjunction with the Southern Nevada Health District and the state, really has provided us with a level of support to make sure that we have enough.

I'm proud of the work that we have also done with our bargaining units.

We have included an MOA to do random testing of our employees because that's how we can see our positivity within our schools but then also be able to monitor what happens as a mitigation strategy.

I sat in on a call with my colleagues across the country and that's what some districts are doing.

They all report the positivity rate is lower within schools because I think this is one of the mitigating strategies to make sure that it doesn't, you know, spread around the school building.

So I think we have enough and we've done enough preparation for opening up and bringing students and staff into our buildings.

-Vaccination rates or mandatory vaccinations in general, not something we see in the plan itself.

Are you tracking vaccination rates of teachers that will be in person in the classroom?

-Yes.

This is-- Dr. Cortez laughs because, you know, this is some of her work as well.

I'm going to tell you, she's doing a great job in partnership with UNLV.

This community has stepped up.

The governor, prioritizing educators was critical.

You know, my colleagues across the country were jealous this morning when I shared with them where we are.

We have about, I would say, almost half of our staff that had-- they're not mandatory-- that have participated in taking the vaccine.

So I'm really excited where that is today.

-You know, what we're finding out is it resembles what we've seen in the community.

It's exactly what Dr. Jara had said, approximately 50% based on the information that we have from the health district as well as UNLV.

UNLV has been an amazing partner.

We've had many educators-- and I want to make sure that we clarify that the vaccine is open to all CCSD employees.

So we have communicated that out, and still they have priority and that opportunity to ensure that if they want the vaccine, they have that eligibility prior to returning March 1 for those individuals as well as we've opened it up to all grades.

So we really encourage that.

We also encourage them to be able to submit their information through our District Origami to assist them down the road.

If there is an exposure, then that information is readily available for them.

So we've had a great opportunity, and it's to our partnerships as well for making that happen so quickly.

-Josh, I want to come back to you on the facility side of things now.

Let's look into the future here.

We've already talked about that we could see some expansion potentially to other schools now if we are talking about middle schools and high schools.

One thing, just the capacity of your department itself.

Of course there was news reported that there were 15,000 referrals originally, maintenance referrals that needed to be done.

A lot of those were for HVAC, ventilation, plumbing and things like that.

Do you have the capacity do you think to get schools up and running if we are to see an expansion to-- let's just be really optimistic and say we could get to full-day instruction?

-Absolutely, good question.

Yes, we've been working since the beginning of the school year to attack that backlog of work orders.

We've been very successful in that.

We are seeing a downward trend; however, I believe operationally we are ready to support the reopening of schools.

Some of the things with regard to our backlog of work orders and more of a long-term plan is to become more of a preventive maintenance department rather than a reactive maintenance department.

So again, we feel comfortable that we'll be able to support the reopening of schools with our staff with what we've been doing, prioritizing, like you said, those work orders that are HVAC and plumbing related, as those will be critical to maintaining the cleanliness of the school.

But we're in a good position, and we're grateful for the partners of the schools as well.

They're working with us and we're working with them to make sure that we have the support we need.

-Dr. Jara, I want to come back to you and ask the original question here.

What should be top of mind for parents right now?

Of course a lot of questions are being thrown at you in your town halls and via social media as well.

Let me give you the platform here to talk about what you see as top of mind.

-Well, the top of mind obviously is the health and safety.

We're going to open up our campuses and our kids are going to be safe, our staff is going to be safe.

You've heard our mitigation strategies that we've put in place.

I feel very confident in the work we've done.

Actually, when we presented it to the emergency management team at the state level in the governor's office, the emergency management at the Southern Nevada Health District, it was well received.

They applauded the plan and said great job, good work.

So the components are there.

You know, this virus is not over, right?

So once our kids come to school face to face, we still have to practice social distancing, we still have to wash our hands, we still have to protect each other and one another from the spread, right?

But I want the parents to know that we're taking every measure that we can in research provided by health experts and safety experts.

I'm not going to put our kids and I'm not going to put staff in harm's way.

But we're going to do what we can and they have to do what they can at home and when they're out in the community.

So that's important.

We're not only dealing with a health crisis.

My biggest concern that we have is an academic crisis, and this is why-- and it's not because our teachers aren't working hard.

Our teachers are doing amazing things.

But that social, that face-to-face, that instruction is going to be-- with that classroom teacher, that is the key.

So we're working hard to minimize that academic loss as well and then the mental health.

I think--I feel from last night's announcement to today, you know, yes, we're a little tired.

We are tired, but you know what?

I see that the team now is energized because we're getting to what we know.

So we're working on that to get our families back because I think it will start providing our children some type of normalcy.

-And to that point, Dr. Cortez, I want to ask you, let's talk more specifically about the mental health aspects of this.

As Dr. Jara mentioned, just having the ability to see children physically present and the hope factor here is really important too when anyone, any student within the K-12 system can see that some schools are reopening.

Let's go specifically to identification both in classroom but also more specifically let's talk about distance education students.

What are we doing differently maybe in this next phase for those that are choosing cohort C, to make sure we're able to identify students that really are struggling?

-That's a great question and again, it is site specific.

Some schools are really zeroing in on results from that program, through Lifeline Panorama, that identify students who may be at greatest risk, and they're putting different interventions in place working with those specific students.

There are so many schools that have one-to-one outreach that they are doing and really focusing on connection.

Some schools are actually asking kids to turn on their cameras so it's not those icons that they're looking at.

So, you know, just when you see a smile, that makes a big difference in someone's day-to-day life, especially when you're home all day.

Many of our students are home, their parents may be working, so they don't have that interaction that they would have if they were at school.

Some students are home all day with a lot of things going on.

They could have siblings there, so they're trying to just manage it.

So really, schools are unique.

Some schools are doing great support groups.

They're just having social groups.

Some schools have eating lunch with the principal.

So really just focusing in on what are the needs that have been identified and building on those to continue giving students those social opportunities for one another.

And going back to Dr. Jara earlier speaking about why pre-K to 3, many of those students haven't had that opportunity to hop on or to come to school for the first time.

Remember bringing that kindergartener?

So really giving students those opportunities for that face-to-face, and the social communication skills are key to your mental health.

-Thank you, as always, for joining us this week on Nevada Week.

Before we close, we want to make note that the CCSD Board of Trustees holds Vegas PBS' FCC license, and the School District is a funder of Vegas PBS.

Now, for any of the resources discussed on this show, please visit our website at vegaspbs.org/nevada-week.

You can also always find us on social media at @nevadaweek.

Thanks again, and we'll see you next week.

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