Dr. Kevin Whitaker, Jamestown Public Schools superintendent.

Kevin Whitaker had hoped that all Jamestown Public Schools students would have returned to some form of in-person instruction by the time the calendar turned to November.

But, the recent surge in COVID-19 cases has made that a hard goal for the district to meet.

“Community spread is a little bit high for my liking,” Whitaker, the district’s first-year superintendent, told members of the board of education during Tuesday’s meeting. “I still have some concerns about community spread after seeing how many cases there were over the weekend and seeing that there was one death.”

However, he did note that the district is working through logistics to bring more students back with an alternating schedule.

“We’re creating solutions to logistical obstacles that will enable us to bring kids back sooner rather than later at the high school,” he said.

The district has been cautious in terms of bringing back more students in person — mostly at Jamestown High School.

Currently, students ranging from kindergarten through ninth grade are attending school in person at least twice a week, with Fridays being added back into the mix in mid-October. But a good amount of sophomores, juniors and seniors have been relegated to learning online, despite the addition of students in certain Advanced Placement courses as well as those in need of specific services that has also occurred in recent weeks.

The overarching problem, Whitaker said, lies in the high school’s size and room specifications that present a challenge to social distancing requirements. He noted that most school buildings are built with classrooms that are 770 square feet in size; the rooms at JHS are mostly “sub-500 square feet.”

“Smaller districts have smaller high schools with larger rooms,” he said. “As opposed to our rooms which limit us.”

“The overriding issue is there are two main problems specifically at the high school: it’s giant building tons of people combined with small rooms,” Whitaker continued. “What you end up with is a schedule that, without COVID, could create a large number of kids in small spaces. When you introduce the COVID component into that equation, you’re now, given your current health rules, introducing larger numbers of kids into close proximity which creates giant quarantine problems, not to mention potential infection problems thatcould take out large numbers of students and teachers.”

The second issue, he noted, lies in the district’s protocols and procedures regarding cleaning that the high school’s academic schedule would present.

“The challenge of 10th, 11th and 12th graders increasingly have different classes from each other,” he said. “It introduces a level of complexity into the schedule. It causes a strain to schedule the number of rooms like the people who are able to cover them and plus, many different students would be traveling across cohorts.”

The reason for caution thus far and in recent weeks, Whitaker explained, is guarding against the Jamestown region becoming a “micro-cluster,” which centralizes COVID-19 cases based on geographic region and mitigates the spread accordingly.

“If we suddenly have an explosion of cases and we become a red, orange or yellow zone, we have to close,” Whitaker said. “If we become a mricoluster site, we close. On top of that, I’m certainly hoping the school doesn’t cause a microcluster, because that places restrictions on businesses. But that, in and of itself, gives me pause and concern.”

But, with the holidays coming up, that fear of continued community spread remains prevalent, so much so that trying to project how school will look beyond the Christmas season is as predictable as starting through a crystal ball, the superintendent said.

“I don’t know where the science is going to be in terms of vaccination, immunization,” Whitaker said. “I don’t know what our holiday season is going to create in terms of community cases. It’s just difficult to say. The difference between us is the sheer size of our high school between the kids and the size of our rooms.”

Whitaker also emphasized the continued uncertainty regarding the state’s financial situation with regard to schools as a 20% cut to school funding looms from Gov. Andrew Cuomo who is hoping for a federal bailout to help address a budget deficit. That is maximized by a presidential election that has yet to see a victor called.

“I have said before and I’ll say again, I know a lot of it develops around the politics,” he said. (Cuomo’s) strategy is heavily dependent on a bailout front from the federal government, but I’m focused on keeping the doors open, lights on and instructional programs intact. It requires money. If the Governor moves forward, it will negatively affect Jamestowns of New York state in a way that’s devastating.”

Whether or not it will actually occur is still unclear.

“Nobody knows,” Whitaker said. “You can ask anyone. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. I get the political challenge there where you’re asking legislators that represent wealthier districts to consider those who are not in their district. That’s a political challenge and I hope that they can work through that for the benefit of kids.”