How did NH re-open its schools? Part 1: Public Schools

Over the past year, COVID-19 has impacted the entire world and schools have been no exception. Here in New Hampshire, School Administrative Units (SAUs), the entities that run day-to-day operations at the Granite State’s local public schools, have had to adapt to the pandemic through new safety measures and adjusted educational frameworks.

With the 2020-’21 School Year now underway, Manchester Ink Link is introducing a multi-part series into what local school leaders took into account when deciding how to re-open their schools.

In this, the first part of that series, we provide a look at the SAUs, their released re-opening plans, when those plans were approved and when possible, school board meeting minutes detailing what was said when decisions on those plans were being finalized.

Of the 100 SAUs in New Hampshire that have schools [1], only two did not release re-opening plans of some sort. The first is Croydon, which has a one-room elementary school with slightly under two dozen students and sends older students to other nearby SAUs. The second is Coe-Brown Academy, which has followed safety guidelines outside of an overarching plan since its school year in mid-August, a time when most other SAUs were still deliberating upon their re-opening plans.

In some SAUs that stretch over multiple towns or cities, different plans were released and different school boards needed to take votes, all of which we aimed to capture in this study.

Ultimately, the SAUs took one of four routes: a fully-remote beginning to the school year, a beginning that saw students physically at school five days a week, a hybrid of those two approaches [2], or an approach that saw different schools in the SAU vary in which one of those three options they chose.

In SAUs that chose in-person or hybrid systems, a remote option was generally given for parents unwilling to send their children to school for in-person learning. However, for this analysis, SAUs are only listed as pursuing the remote route if that was their primary method of re-opening.

Likewise, in SAUs that pursued a remote restart to the school year, some children with special needs were allowed to receive in-person learning as part of Individual Education Plans, 504 Plans, or other circumstances that necessitated in-person learning.

Many of the plans referred to themselves as “living documents” or referenced fluidity that provided SAU superintendents the authority to rapidly make learning more remote depending on the discovery of students or staff members infected with COVID-19. Additionally, many of the plans included metrics based on per-capita infection rates over a recent time frame that allowed automatic shifts of more or less remote learning. Other plans referenced a phased transition from one approach to another based on the assumption that the pandemic will recede over time and in-person learning is preferable to remote learning.

Thus, please keep in mind the attached table and map only represent approaches expected at the beginning of the school year.

[1] – Five SAUs have students, but no schools. The primary role of those SAUs is to ensure enrollment for those students in nearby schools.

[2] – Generally, a weekly routine of two days of remote learning, two days of in-person learning and a “flex” day for cleaning and teacher/student planning was the norm, but some districts pursued four days of in-person learning per week with one day of remote learning.