LYNNFIELD — Due to a recent spike in the number of COVID cases, and the discovery of two cases in school-age children over the past 12 days, the Lynnfield School Committee voted Wednesday to suspend most in-school learning and pivot to a fully remote plan through Sept. 30.
“We are all reluctant ‘yesses’ (on the vote) on this and I ask the community to do their best to get kids back in school as early as possible,” said School Committee Chairman Jamie Hayman. “I am disappointed for students, parents and teachers. This is not what any of us want.”
“We want our kids back in schools, but we need to do right by them and act responsibly,” said committee member Stacy Dahlstedt.
Superintendent of Schools Kristen Vogel said she plans to continue monitoring data trends in the hopes of being able to revert back to the hybrid model the district had originally planned to start the year with.
“We have been following and will continue to follow the data very closely. Our biggest concern is that this is the first time that school-age children have contracted the virus,” she said. “We have 2,000 students and 1,000 staff to think of. We need to do the right thing, and that is going with a remote learning model for the first two weeks of school,” adding that Cohort A (high-priority) and pre-school children will continue to have four days a week of in-school learning per Department of Elementary and Secondary Education guidelines.
The town had gone 18 straight days without any new cases just a few weeks ago, but has now seen 18 new cases reported in the last 12 days through Wednesday, two of them in children under the age of 10.
“This is the largest new trend of new cases since May or early June,” said Town Administrator Rob Dolan. “The age group is an incredible red flag for us as a committee and as a community as a whole. The most concerning part of it is there are no new cases in the 70 and over group or people who are in medical facilities.”
Dolan said the largest uptick of new cases is in the 20-29 age group (seven new cases).
“This is not a trend among people who are sick,” said Fire Chief Glenn Davis. “We had been doing extremely well with decreasing numbers, so this is alarming to us.”
The committee will vote on the fate of the fall sports season at its next meeting on Sept. 15. Vogel recommended that all captains’ practices be discontinued immediately.
The meeting was broadcast live on Facebook, drawing nearly 400 comments from the public, many of whom expressed their disagreement.
“Terrible decision,” posted Colleen Raska.
Kimberly Kent posted, “So you are further destroying our kids by taking away hybrid AND their sports…talk about failing the kids in every possible way.”
Angela Oleas expressed her concerns about working parents, posting “What are parents that work suppose(d) to do? Not everyone can work from home! Kids need to be back in school. Why isn’t mental health of students being taken into consideration? This is awful.”
Mary Ann Coletta said she thought that a two-week period of remote “is very reasonable, (e)specially considering that it is unknown if there were more people exposed over Labor weekend gatherings.”
Vogel said that Lynnfield Community Schools expanded child care program at the Senior Center will also be put on hold.
“If it’s not safe to be in the school buildings, then it’s not safe to be in that program,”Vogel said.
Hayman said it’s time for the community to start acting responsibly.
“If anyone thinks we don’t want to get kids back in school, they haven’t been paying attention,” Hayman said. “As a parent I want my kids in school; my kids want to be in school and the only way we can do that is to wear masks and wash our hands and practice distancing whether we like it or not. This is not about the individual, this is about a community and we need to act responsibly.”
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].