His name is Valter Dervishi, but everyone at Ferry Elementary School, from the students to the staff, knows him simply as Mr. Valter. Even the nameplate on his office door says “Mr. Valter.”
To Ferry Principal Jodie Randazzo, the school’s head engineer is one of the many unsung heroes who has made a difficult year manageable in spite of the challenges posed by COVID-19.
“He’s incredible,” Randazzo said. “He cares about this building the way he would his own home. He’s very involved and has his hands on all of it to always keep it in its best shape, which has been an additional benefit during a pandemic.”
Valter’s dedication and organizational skills also helped keep construction on track this summer during the bond renovations. Ferry, Randazzo noted, was one of the first schools to have construction complete.
“All of our construction was done in a timely manner and looked incredible and it was in part because he was here and making sure things were done and that it was done and prepared for students’ and teachers’ return, not knowing what the fall would bring,” she said.
Superintendent Gary Niehaus agrees Valter was instrumental in the success of the bond projects this summer.
“He was always one step ahead of the construction people and the move management people,” Niehaus said. “Their building got back in order, back in place, just as soon as everything cooled down with construction this summer. The guy is just a perfectionist as a cleaner and as a custodian and as a caretaker. He’s one of those people who finds solutions and works to get the solution in place before it becomes a bigger issue. There isn’t a cleaner building in the district.”
Valter came to GPPSS as a night leader on the custodial staff in 2001 and worked at several other elementary schools before finding a home at Ferry in 2007.
Randazzo credits him for his day-to-day support of teachers with whatever needs to be done, inside or out. Most recently, that has been to prepare for the students’ return to the building for hybrid learning in January and a full return to face-to-face on Monday, March 1.
“He’s just a huge part of the Ferry family,” she said.
Return to full-time
All hands were on deck this week to prepare the elementary school buildings for a return to full-time face-to-face learning on Monday, March 1. Face-to-face plans specific to each building are available at gpschools.org.
Principals at each school completed a 36-page checklist from the Centers for Disease Control K-12 Schools COVID-19 Mitigation Toolkit.
A representative group toured each building to review the list and determine its accuracy. Typically present on each tour were the principal, Deputy Superintendent Jon Dean or Amanda Matheson, the school secretary, several teachers, a member of the custodial staff and a parent.
Maire Principal Ryan Francis made it clear to his group at the outset of the tour that the goal wasn’t to check off all items on the list as complete or fully in compliance.
“Our goal is 100 percent transparency,” he said. “If it’s a ‘no,’ it’s a ‘no.’ If we can fix it, our goal is to fix it.”
The focus of the toolkit was on mitigation strategies to prepare schools to open for in-person instruction and manage ongoing operations during COVID-19. The document notes that the use of the toolkit is voluntary, however, and is not intended to assess regulatory compliance. It’s up to school personnel to determine how often they need to revisit the materials as the situation and guidance for COVID-19 change.
Items on the checklist of mitigation strategies include availability and adherence to mask use, availability and adherence to social distancing, clearly visible cues to maintain social distancing, availability of hand hygiene supplies and opportunities for use, ventilation modification, and signage and messaging. There also was a checklist on screening, testing and preparing for when someone is sick; cleaning, ventilation and physical spaces; and mental health well-being and support.
With the exception of adherence to social distancing, participants agreed the same risk mitigation measures were in place for full-time face-to-face learning as during hybrid learning, when students attended in cohorts.
The question about three feet vs. six feet of social distancing was raised during a town hall for parents held on Thursday evening.
“The reality is when we return full face-to-face, we are not in most cases going to be able to maintain six feet social distancing,” Dean said. “What we do have are plans to mitigate risks.”
Mason Principal Roy Bishop and Kerby Principal Walter Fitzpatrick added that in their buildings, custodial staff removed as much furniture as possible in each classroom and teachers devised creative ways to maximize space for the additional number of students.
Masks and desk shields, stickers marking socially distant line-up spots, one-way stairwells, separate entrances for arrival and dismissal times, outdoor gym when possible and even students walking through the hallways with “Zombie” arms are all strategies in place to maintain the goal of allowing as much separation as possible. Many of these safety measures were evident during the walk-through tours.
Maire PTO President Jeff Mertz acknowledged the anxiety surrounding the decision to return to full-time face-to-face instruction. Safety, he noted, is of the utmost importance to parents.
“I think they’re doing the best job they can,” he said. “It’s not perfect, but what more can we ask for? We’re very excited about the efforts being put in place to help keep our kids and our teachers safe.”
Click here for a screencast providing details on how to find COVID-specific information on the district website.
Teachers share virtual successes
Remote learning may have received bad press this year during the pandemic, but Sara Delgado, OneGP Virtual launch coordinator, had some good news to share with the Board of Education at the meeting Monday night, held virtually.
“There’s been a lot of discussions not just in Grosse Pointe Public Schools but nationally of late that remote learning isn’t working,” Delgado said. “I’m not here to dispute that. I know that there are many parents and families out there who would say that it is not necessarily working for them. However, I have over 80 staff members in the district that I have been given the pleasure to collaborate with this year, as well as over 1,100 of our own students, who have been doing amazing things in our virtual school.”
Delgado and six teachers in the virtual program attended the meeting to share some success stories.
Delgado gave an overview of the framework used to develop the program within best practices. This model consists of three overlapping areas: cognitive presence — the extent to which students are able to construct meaning through sustained communication; social presence — the ability for community members to feel comfortable in a learning space; and teaching presence — the design of the educational experience and facilitation of instruction.
Of these three areas, the model identifies “teaching presence” as the defining element.
Another focus has been developing learning communities as safe spaces where students are willing to share. Interactions are defined in three ways: student to instructor; student to student and student to content.
“That student to instructor piece has not been as difficult to replicate virtually, but student to student has been more of a challenge in the virtual setting,” Delgado said.
In her visits to virtual classrooms, Delgado has witnessed a variety of ways connections have been made, from a high school teacher who provided a breakout room as a safe space for students to open up with one another and share their struggles, to elementary teachers who used small group and student support time to individualize instruction, similar to how they would use small group or workshop time in a face-to-face classroom.
The teachers provided glimpses of their classrooms and shared examples of student learning that exceeded their expectations.
“I’ve always been a firm believer in students having voice and choice with learning,” said first-grade teacher Stephanie Dye, adding her students have applied their newly developed technical skills in ways she never would have thought possible before this year.
Dye also appreciates the relationships she has built with her parents.
“I’ve also always been a firm believer in having families as partners,” she said. “We’re all in this together and this year I’ve shared more with families than I ever have, not just the materials, but I’m in their homes daily. This has had a lot of positive impact because they’re hearing my language; they’re hearing how I’m asking questions and they know exactly what their child is learning every single day so they can continue to build on that if they choose to.”
Middle school math teacher Sheena Bloomfield, too, said this has been her best year when it comes to communicating with parents.
“I really just feel closer to my families that I work with,” she said. “I get great emails from parents and kids constantly.”
She also has been impressed with how her students have taken a leadership role in her class and cheer each other on, putting positive comments to one another in the chat function.
“They’ve been teaching and leading,” she said. “It’s been amazing to watch that.”
Middle school English teacher Corey Ernst has discovered the social-emotional benefits of virtual tools like Pear Deck. For example, responding to the prompt “How are you feeling today?” students sign in with a sad face, medium face, or happy face. This allows Ernst to check in with them privately and work through any issues or concerns.
High school English teacher Paul Golm, new to GPPSS this year, uses Pear Deck as well as Google Suite in his American literature, film and mythology classes. In one example of innovative use of technology, he had students program robots to debate each other about pizza toppings.
“Kids thought it was awesome,” he said. “They wrote some really passionate words in defense of pineapple as a topping.”
In his view, students are open to sharing in this format. Moreover, they feel validated when they see their ideas up on the screen and can reflect on the views of their classmates.
For One GP Virtual resource room teacher Julia Kennedy, who is teaching at the secondary level this year, technology provides additional access for students.
“My goal as a special educator is to provide access for the students that I work with,” she said. “Working in this kind of environment, when you’re talking about universal design principles, you’re talking about things that are accessible for everybody.”
Moreover, in her view, the virtual setting allows teachers to embed accommodations directly into the curriculum and provides for increased one-on-one social-emotional check-ins with students and equitable access to individualized education plan (IEP) meetings with working parents.
“For me, the accessibility within this virtual environment has been quite incredible,” she said.
Delgado closed the presentation by recognizing all the staff who have contributed to the OneGP Virtual program.
“What we were provided was an opportunity to provide families with an online learning option during a pandemic and during a year of great uncertainty,” Delgado said. “But with that opportunity, we also have a responsibility. I couldn’t be more proud of how the virtual staff has owned this program and this responsibility in discovering best practices in virtual learning for our Grosse Pointe students.”
Click here to view a video providing a peek into virtual classrooms. (Video created by Stephanie Neisch.)
Stopping the spread
COVID Testing Townhall with Dr. Phillip D. Levy
Why get tested?
The short answer is it’s the right thing to do, according to Phillip D. Levy, M.D., chief innovation officer for Wayne Health and assistant vice president at Wayne State University. Testing is one of the strategies recommended by the CDC to help reduce the number of positive COVID-19 cases in the community.
“It’s really a concept of we’re all in this together,” Levy said. “The more we are willing to test, the sooner we’ll be able to detect that infection and stop that spread.”
Dr. Levy was the guest at the school district’s Feb. 24 townhall on COVID testing for high school students, available on live-stream. He presented an overview of the GPPSS COVID testing plan before answering frequently asked questions.
The testing plan initially targets the high school group. The approach will be nasal testing — the interior nasal cavity, or tip of the nostril, vs. the posterior pharyngeal wall — rather than saliva tests. Tests will be self-administered under the guidance of a nurse.
The focus is on screening rather than diagnostic testing.
“Diagnostic testing is what you do when someone is symptomatic and you want to get an answer right away,” Levy explained. “When you do diagnostic testing, every single sample is run on its own.”
With the number of positive cases as low as it is now — COVID prevalence is about 3.5 percent statewide and 3 percent in the Detroit metro area, according to Levy — pool testing, where samples are combined into one common pool, is a more efficient use of resources. If the pool tests negative overall, then every sample in that pool is negative. If one or more of those samples are positive, the samples can be pulled and tested individually.
The purpose of screening testing isn’t to keep a student out of the classroom unless they test negative, Levy clarified. The goal is to pick up asymptomatic cases before they spread too deeply into the school district and the community.
Ideally, every student would get tested, Levy said, but a goal for appropriate statistical modeling is 400 to 500 people every one to two weeks.
“The more we test, the more we surveil the community, we’ll be able to pick up on those asymptomatic cases and stop the spread before it gets too big,” he said.
School Pointes is a publication of the Grosse Pointe Public School System.