WILLIAMSVILLE, N.Y. (WBEN) – Student leaders at Williamsville Schools believe progress has been made after meeting with the district's acting superintendent on Wednesday evening.
Students learned earlier in the day that they would return to the classroom in a hybrid model beginning in October. Fifth and sixth grade students can return on Friday, October 13. The rest of the middle schoolers will return the following Monday. High school students can return a week later on October 26.
"It was friendly and we felt like there was a decent amount of progress that gone done," Lucas Romanowski, Senior Class President at Williamsville East, said.
Anna Conway, Senior Class President at Williamsville South, echoed Romanowski that it was there was a sense of optimism moving forward.
"(Dr. McKenna) was really trying to engage all of the students and communicate with all of us, which is something that we haven't seen a lot in the past," she said. "It's good that it's happening currently. I think the communication is much better and the protests and our voice had something to do with that."
Still, not all demands have been met. Students, and parents, want an earlier return to classroom but Dr. McKenna explained why the district chose the dates they did.
"Our committee determined a phased-in model was critical to help us support our staff of approximately 700 teachers with the transition to the model," Dr. McKenna said in the video. "It was also necessary to ensure our technology needs were thoroughly met to effectively deliver a quality model for our students and staff. Delivering a quality model was essential to our committee."
Student leaders though wonder why the district can't simply upgrade the network to accommodate extra needs. They also wonder what more teachers need to learn.
"I don't see how they could need more training as they've been receiving training with technology already since the summer," Romanowski said. "Even before that, in the spring, there was some training in there. We're still going to be using the same platforms between Zoom, Google Classroom, and Google Meet. I can't see why the teachers would need another month in order to be prepared for that."
Romanowski said Erie 1 BOCES had an influence in the district's date selection.
"At first I (wondered) why does there need to be weeks for all this training?" Conway said. "At the meeting (Dr. McKenna) explained that there was so much technology and each teacher is on a different skill level with this technology. When he broke it down for us, I finally got to understand that it takes a while to train these teachers and they do need those development dates. I feel like October is a pretty good timeline. Although I'd like to go back sooner, it is a pretty reasonable date and it's much better than January."
Our requests for comment from the district and the teacher's union were not returned.
Romanowski suggested there could be future demonstrations outside the district offices like one held on Tuesday, where students rallied as part of a canned food drive.
"I think we really liked the response we got from that," Romanowski said. "I would say probably look for more events like that. Taking all that energy and turning it into something positive also. I think that's definitely the better approach."
