Norwin protesters: put students in class 5 days a week

The message about 60 Norwin students and parents sent to school officials as they gathered outside the administration building Monday was loud and clear: Let students attend school five days a week and scrap plans to offer three days of online instruction.

“I don’t think our district is actually listening to us,” Leslie Savage, a leader of the #Norwin5DaysStrong reopening protest group, said while the school board was holding a virtual meeting.

Savage, whose son will be a senior this school year, said Norwin could use the gymnasium, cafeteria and auditorium to hold classes and keep social distancing.

“They’re not being very creative,” said Savage, a member of Irwin Borough council.

The hybrid education model that Norwin approved on July 30 for its 5,300 students reduces the number of students in the school buildings every day by placing about one-half of the students, based on the first letter of their last name, in school Mondays and Tuesdays, with the remaining students going to class on Thursdays and Fridays. All students get virtual learning on Wednesdays and the two days they are not in school.

The school district’s decision was reenforced Monday when the state health and education departments recommended that all schools in Westmoreland County follow a hybrid plan because the county is classified as having a “moderate level” of community transmission of covid-19.

Alex Detschelt of North Huntingdon, a leader of the Norwin Strong Reopening Protest Group, was disheartened to learn that the state health department placed Westmoreland County in the “moderate” category for transmitting covid-19.

“The covid stats in Westmoreland don’t support the district’s decision on hybrid plans,” Detschelt claimed.

Holding a sign that read, “Google is not a classroom,” Michelle Zowacki said it was difficult for she and her husband, when they working from home this spring, to help their third grade twin boys with their assignments. Helping them understand a lesson had to be squeezed in between their own work or in the evenings.

“They want to go back to school five days a week — so bad,” Zowacki said.

Students with individual education plans need to be in school, as required by state and federal law, said Kim Law, whose two sons have IEPs.

“It’s no way for my two sons to learn,” Law said.

Jamie Miller of North Huntingdon said both her girls, Eilin, a rising seventh grader, and Madelyn, a rising fifth grader, are disappointed they are not returning to school fulltime.

“You’re barely learning,” with online instruction, Madelyn Miller said.

Some of the speakers at the 45-minute protest noted that some students are becoming depressed and suicidal because of the lack of interaction with their peers. Detschelt asked the board and administrators whether Norwin had considered the detrimental effect on students’ mental health by not having students in school, as well as the difficulties on students with individual education plans.

With school limited to just two days a week, “it doesn’t give you a reason to be happy,” Eilin Miller said.

Responding to Detschelt’s point that some neighboring school districts have found ways to open schools five days a week, “in what is the best interest of the students,” Brian Carlton, board president, said the school opening plans for Norwin and other districts are fluid and it would not surprise him if neighboring schools change their plans.

Carlton is a teacher at Penn-Trafford, which has opted to provide in-school instruction five days a week to students who want it.