Reynolds Middle School is canceling in-person learning for approximately three weeks beginning Thursday and instead will hold classes remotely in order to develop “safety protocols” and “social-emotional supports” to address student fights and inappropriate behavior.
Parents learned of the in-person closure on Monday via a short, three-sentence email from the Reynolds School District. At 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Superintendent Danna Diaz followed up with another email explaining that the COVID-19 pandemic and more than 1 ½ years of disruptions “have taken a toll on the well-being of our students and staff.”
“The safety and security of our students, families, and staff is our highest priority,” Diaz said in her email.
The Reynold School District’s decision to shut down classrooms for such an extended period because of student behavior appears to be exceptionally rare. But the pandemic-related problem it faces might not be. Earlier this month, parents in Northeast Portland stood outside Roseway Heights Middle School holding signs pleading for more security and resources after a streak of serious fights among students.
Like schools across the state, the 9,000-student Reynolds district east of Portland shuttered all of its schools in March 2020, but then reopened them to hybrid learning in spring 2021 following Gov. Kate Brown’s direction. This fall, the district returned to full-time in-person learning, but that has been marred by student and staff COVID-19 cases and quarantines.
The school, in Fairview, is one of three middle schools in the district. It serves students from parts of Gresham, Fairview and Wood Village.
“We are finding that some students are struggling with the socialization skills necessary for in-person learning, which is causing disruption in school for other students,” Diaz said in her Tuesday email.
When asked for more detail, district spokesperson Steve Padilla confirmed that fights and other behavioral problems prompted the district to shutdown in-person learning temporarily from Thursday through Dec. 9, with each grade level returning for one day of in-person learning in that last week before a schoolwide in-person restart on Dec. 10.
Padilla couldn’t immediately provide more details about the number and frequency of fights or the circumstances in which they were occurring. He said to his knowledge, no weapons were involved.
“It’s not just fighting,” Padilla said. “It’s disruptive behaviors as well — students are disrupting other students, making it hard for them to learn.”
He added that the district is acting swiftly because it doesn’t want to wait for the next incident to occur.
“We need to take care of this now,” Padilla said. “It’s urgent.”
Neither Diaz nor school principal Sara Idle were available to be interviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive Tuesday. Board chair Ana Gonzalez Muñoz and vice chair Yesenia Delgado didn’t immediately return requests for comment. The board, however, is expected to talk about the school’s troubles at its regularly scheduled meeting Wednesday at 7 p.m., viewable on Zoom.
Reynolds Middle School, with 928 students, is the only school in the district so far to have resorted to distance learning to address behavioral problems. Marc Siegel, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Education, said the department doesn’t play a role in approving district’s school closures.
Although Reynolds’ superintendent characterized the in-person closure as “approximately two weeks,” it spans about three weeks but encompasses two already scheduled school days off for the Thanksgiving holiday.
In all, Reynolds Middle School students will receive three full days off from classes — Thursday, Friday and Dec. 6 — that weren’t originally scheduled. During that time, Reynolds Middle School staff will craft “safety protocols” and design “social-emotional supports.”
For two additional days, students will receive 30 minutes of direct online instruction then spend the rest of those days learning on their own, also known as “asynchronous” learning. For an additional eight days, they will receive 3 hours and 45 minutes of in-person instruction.
In Diaz’s email to parents Tuesday, she said she realizes that shifting to remote learning “can be a hardship on our families.”
“We apologize for any inconvenience this temporary transition may cause,” she said. “We are confident that we can put necessary supports and operational procedures in place to effectively provide a safe learning environment for all students and staff during this time.”
— Aimee Green
©2021 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Nonetheless, you still have to graduate them—they’re just not as conforming as what might be expected.
What is expected any more?
Also, WHAT DID THEY EXPECT, when for 18 mo, kids have been literally locked in their homes, Told “IF YOU ARE WHITE< you are bad/wrong/evil, and responsible for all the wrongs in our world" and the like. OF COURSE that will generate up animosity.
AND when for that same 18 months or so, they have repeatedly seen DOZENS UPON DOZENS, upwards of thousands of criminals, DAILY BREAKING THE LAW and not just getting away with it, but in many respects, CELEBRATED For it. OF course the kids themselves will think "WE can do wrong, and not get punished"…
Reynolds Middle School, Northeast 201st Avenue, Fairview, Oregon is in the district of the City Portland, Oregon.
We all have seen the rioting, burning and looting that the Democrat Party controlled City of Portland, Oregon has allowed to go on for over a year.
How can the residence of Portland be So Stupid as to keep allowing radical Democrats to run their lives?? Why do these Fools keep voting for these disgraceful Democrats??
YOU Said it in your first line.. THEY ARE TOO STUPID.
When kids view the acts of the radical ANTI and BLM protests and riots daily on TV, how do you expect kids to act? They start to believe that is the way to be. Same goes for looters and shop lifters the more it is viewed and no consequences for doing it, others begin to do the same.
They are suspending in class learning for 3 weeks to work on implementing “safety controls”, and “social and emotional support”.
Safety controls: Issue pepper spray to all teachers.
Social and emotional support: Douse misbehaving students with pepper spray, and suspend them for 3 weeks.
There, problem solved, and it only took 2 minutes.
Ah, liberalism includes the total destruction of schools, the destruction of learning reading, writing, arithmetic, history and teaching kids hatred and violence and what does one get? Out of control schools!
Parents are frustrated? Too bad, you voted in the liberal radicals that are running your state. Soon the little brats will be old enough to jail. Maybe you’ll like that better.
Too many parents don’t discipline their children and they have a fit if a teacher tries to discipline them. Then they sue when a cop with his back against the wall delivers the ultimate discipline.
No sympathy.
AND IMO that is all thanks to YET AGAIN< LEFTISTS. Through out the 90s, we got told "Disciplining/spanking" your kids was wrong. Marking their test scores with red, was wrong.. Failing them was wrong etc.
SO PARENTS Have been brainwashed into NOT WANTING TO punish their kids, because THEY WERE RAISED that "Doing so was wrong/evil/bad"
So let me get this straight: Due to kids being away from in person school because of COVID they are finding “some students are struggling with the socialization skills necessary for in-person learning, which is causing disruption in school”. Therefore, in order to fix the situation they are closing in person school which is the cause of the problem in the first place according to the administration.
Only in liberal logic would that make sense.
BUT its typical of their way of thinking…