recommendations for starting a safe school year 2020-2021

✔✔✔ The approach of the new school year will be decided and grounded by each school/community depending on their resources, on the local epidemiological situations, on the current limitations and opportunities;✔✔✔ ensure best practices are shared among schools and communities with respect to the solutions taken depending on the circumstances;✔✔✔ collect vital data for documenting and grounding new decisions action plans before the school year begins, in terms of children/students (identify the vulnerable children; identify the main support needs) and their families (access to devices and Internet, digital skills, availability to accompany one’s child during the online schooling process);✔✔✔ the institutions with responsibilities

in the field of education and health will make a priority of providing advice and information for schools prior to returning to school and during the school year;✔✔✔ provide advice and psychological, social and emotional support for children, students, and teachers;✔✔✔ promote campaigns aimed at reducing stigmatization and fear related to contagion or contamination at the school level (staff, students, families);✔✔✔ additional financial support for schools to prepare the return to school in a context prone to inclusion, safety, and health by providing quality education (additional funding from central and local authorities, non-governmental organizations, and the community; reprioritizing the expense plans).

Recommendations for starting a safe school year 2020-2021, while promoting quality

inclusive education for all children in Romania

This document was created to support the national, county, and local authorities to plan the beginning of the school year 2020-2021 safely for children and for all the school staff, as well as to provide quality inclusive education throughout this unprecedented worldwide situation.

The goal was to identify a set of solutions which may help reduce both the impact of the pandemic upon learning, and the gaps in terms of access to education after schools were closed from March to July 2020 in Romania.

This material was drafted by a team of 18 principals involved in implementing the ”Quality inclusive education: transition from lower to upper secondary education” model, and by representatives of the county institutions in Bacău, at the initiative and coordinated by UNICEF Romania. The recommendations proposed are based on the three scenarios displayed by the Ministry of Education and Research, as well as on the experience acquired by the education experts from March until July 2020, under the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. The solutions presented also show the outcomes of the consultations organized at a community level on topics such as challenges, vulnerabilities, constraints, and solutions specific to each and every scenario. Special attention was paid to vulnerable students and to those at risk of school drop-out .

The considerations and the proposals submitted are equally looking at removing barriers for attending education, supporting learning and guaranteeing well-being for all students, as well as supplying the necessary support for teachers, school staff, and managerial teams, for them to be able to safely provide inclusive contexts and quality education services.

We hope these recommendations may help design some informed decisions, able to enhance access to quality inclusive education for all the children.

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Executive summaryThe opinions expressed in this document belong to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of UNICEF.

✔ amend the National Education Act (NEA) Art 63 – students’ number (reduce the number of children/students while taking into account that the schooling numbers have already been approved);✔ financial support for purchasing containers for the schools lacking space, which cannot identify spaces in other schools;✔ additional financial resources assigned for all additional staff categories; new norms on the teaching practice to be performed by students and pupils attending the Teaching Colleges;✔ provide the funds needed for paying the scholarships and the benefits from economic agents based on the collaboration contracts concluded prior to the pandemic in various industries, mainly the HORECA field;✔ methodologies and guidelines for teachers targeting remedial activities;✔ regulations and methodologies drafted by the Public Health Directorates (PHD) and by the relevant ministries for providing the hygiene and sanitary conditions;✔ have enough funds assigned by the Local Councils, directly linked to the issues noticed by PHD and the recommendations proposed.

The green scenarioStart the school year with regular attendance, in strict conditions for preserving all the students‘ and staff’s health

✔ flexible schedule for initiating the activities, reduce the groups/classes, rearrange the classroom (freedom of choice for schools, considering the differences in terms of existing schooling areas and the number of shifts; potentially relocate some classes in the spare spaces or using modern containers);✔ arrange the outdoor areas of kindergartens so that as many learning activities can occur outdoors;✔ suspend the “Other kind of school” programme at all education levels;✔ identify and hire additional staff: teachers, auxiliary staff, school staff, administrative, and medical staff; have some teaching activities performed by assisting students/higher education students getting prepared for a teaching career, who perform their teaching practice;✔ carry out remedial activities for the children/students who have not attended the online/distance learning;✔ perform some differentiated/individualized curricular adaptations at each school’s level;✔ support from authorities for technological high schools to have regular practical activities in place and pooled with the economic agents (HORECA). Otherwise, there is a risk that students cannot benefit of these services which are highly necessary for the future of the walk of life they have chosen;✔ pay visits to schools and provide counseling from public health experts; present the interpretation of the rules issued by the Public Health Directorates and check the school for licensing prior to starting the school year;✔ have self-quarantine undertaken by parents in the case of contaminations among pupils;✔ ban parents’ access inside the school/kindergarten; kindergarten pick-up and drop-off procedures without the parents entering inside the educational area.

Recommendations/solutions proposed:

PRIORITY SUPPORT NEEDS:

a x b= c

✔ legal regulations on monitoring absenteeism in the case of distance learning;✔ additional financial resources assigned to teachers performing activities both at school and in the online environment;✔ provide financial support for access to IT devices and applications needed for teachers and for digitalizing the schools;✔ adapt the methodologies and regulations on teachers’ annual assessment while considering the peculiarity of teaching, learning, and evaluation in a hybrid system;✔ methodological support and regulations on planning and designing hybrid activities per cycles, education levels, and subjects;✔ teaching guidelines on remedial education and accelerated learning in hybrid system;✔ clear regulations issued by the PHD and national authorities, information and hygiene and safety rules promotion materials made while targeting different categories; provide additional medical staff in schools; online assistance, potentially an emergency helpline for medical specialists to provide advice to teachers, management teams, parents on hygiene and health issues related to participation in children's school curricula.

The Yellow ScenarioCourses organized according to a mixed/hybrid model; Priority: preschoolers, the pupils in the preparatory school, the IVth, and the final classes

✔ all preschoolers and students should have access to a minimum of activities carried out by the teacher online an online attendance procedure should be developed;✔ asynchronous online activity; flexible schedule;✔ hire/detach enough medical staff, for a limited period;✔ provide digital skills training for teachers; curricular adaptations should be made for online learning, considering access to education for all children and especially for vulnerable children;✔ reduce the workload pressure on teachers by simplifying or reducing the number of documents to be drafted and other administrative tasks, given that such documents will also be required in relation to teaching-learning-assessment in a hybrid system (blended-learning);✔ curricular and assessment methodology adjustment (by condensation/prioritization);✔ plans for accelerated learning and remedial education;✔ collaborative teaching at a school level, where there are several classes at the same floor;✔ access funding for digitalizing and connecting the schools to Internet and for purchasing digital learning packages;✔ pay visits to schools and provide counseling from public health experts; present the point of view of the regulations issued by the Public Health Directorates (PHD) and check the school for licensing prior to starting the school year;✔ develop specific safety and health protocols for staff, students and the wider school community, complemented by the Guidelines presented and discussed with all beneficiaries;✔ partnerships with parents for pursuing / extending / supporting the learning activities carried out by children / students within the family; convey key information to the care takers and families of the students regarding the application of hygiene and sanitation protocols in the case of the newly established rules.

Recommendations/solutions proposed:

PRIORITY SUPPORT NEEDS:

. . .. . .

a x b= c

✔ legal regulations on monitoring absenteeism for distance learning;

✔ purchase technological resources through government programs or European funds, so that all students can have access to this type of learning; provide financial support for access to computer devices and applications needed by teachers and for ensuring the digitization of educational institutions;

✔ adapt the methodologies and regulations regarding the annual teachers’ evaluation while taking into account the specifics of teaching-learning-evaluation in an exclusively online system;

✔ methodological support and regulations regarding the planning and design of exclusively online activities by cycles, education levels and subjects.

The Red ScenarioOnline courses exclusively

✔ reshaping the length of a lesson in an online context, and the types of activities proposed for students; reshape the schedules at every school level;✔ training expert groups to provide guidelines and methodologies with concrete examples, effective in exclusively online teaching-learning-assessment methods, at different ages and according to different subjects;✔ training the teachers to reshape the whole educational practice in exclusively online context;✔ accessing funds for digitizing the educational institutions, connecting schools to Internet and for purchasing digital learning packages, and supporting teachers to purchase the necessary devices and access to the necessary IT applications;✔ access to recognized online, official platforms easy to use by students (and parents, in the case of preschoolers), supplemented by printed learning kits, for children from disadvantaged areas / families who do not have access to online resources;✔ facilitate access n of preschoolers / students to attend a minimum of activities proposed by the teacher, as well as the preparing of an online attendance procedure;✔ curricular adjustment, by condensation / prioritization, only focusing on basic skills and allowing progress in learning at the next level; reconfiguration of evaluation methodologies, in the conditions of the educational process carried out exclusively online.

Recommendations/solutions proposed: PRIORITY SUPPORT NEEDS:

Introduction

This material is intended to be a tool to support decision-makers at the national, county and local levels in planning the opening of the 2020-2021 school year in terms of ensuring high quality inclusive education, reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning and reducing the learning gaps occurred following the closure of schools and the interruption of schooling from March to July 2020 in Romania.

The material was developed by documenting the interventions carried out in the Bacău county from March to July 2020 in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and by consultation with a working group consisting of school principals and the deputy general school inspector of the Bacău County School Inspectorate. The consultations aimed at analyzing the challenges, vulnerabilities, constraints and limitations in the context of the pandemic, the potential solutions identified by school principals, and the concrete support needs. The experience of the management teams from pre-university education units (20 high-schools and 35 secondary schools) was capitalized, some institutions successfully tested and implemented the Quality Inclusive Education intervention model proposed by UNICEF in Romania through the project “Social inclusion by providing integrated services at community level” from 2015 until 2019. Currently, they are also involved in the pilot program "Together for the future", focused on facilitating the transition of secondary school students to the upper secondary education, coordinated by UNICEF in Romania. Both projects aimed to test intervention models that would provide the documentation framework needed to substantiate changes in public policies focused on promoting inclusion and quality in education and preventing early school leaving. The experience of these schools and the management teams in addressing the inclusion and quality education issues could thus be capitalized on in proposing viable solutions for the opening of schools from September 2020.

To document the decision-making, planning and concrete intervention processes at national and local level in the educational units, the consultations within the working group, carried out between July and August 2020, focused on the conditions for opening schools considering three scenarios:

• the regular course attendance model, under strict requirements of protecting the health of all school stakeholders;

• courses organized according to a mixed/hybrid model (alternatively, half of the class comes to school, while the other half attends courses online), in strict conditions to ensure the health of all school stakeholders;

• exclusively online/distance courses using digital learning platforms and resources (alternatively, by organizing other forms of distance learning, in cases where access to technology is limited and Internet connectivity is low).

Discussions in the working group consultations focused on the ability of schools to implement prevention measures and provide quality inclusive education in the 2020-2021 school year and on decanting recommendations for each of the three scenarios, which focused on both the educational process, as well as safety and health issues. A key point pursued in the debates and found in this document was the recovery of learning gaps: teachers' perspectives on the blended-learning approach, risks and opportunities; perspectives on the tools they will use in the event that this type of scenario will be implemented; perspectives on assessing and recovering learning gaps and focusing on learning outcomes (vs. curricular recovery); education for all and for everyone - addressing the needs of children with SEN; elements of equity and inclusion - specific actions to prevent school dropout and identify vulnerable groups; mobilization and communication with parents; avoiding labeling and stigmatizing students.

The considerations and proposals inserted in this document also aim to eliminate barriers to participation, learning and well-being of all children / students and primarily of those who are disadvantaged, but also to provide the necessary support to teachers, school staff and management teams to ensure inclusive contexts and high quality education services, safe and healthy for all.

The steps that formed the basis of this document took place in the Bacău County, but they must be considered in a much broader context of concerns and interventions at national and European level, focused on mapping the capacity of education and health systems to respond to the challenges raised by the pandemic, as well as the potential solutions to address the new challenges once schools reopen.

The UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia has thus made a significant contribution to supporting governments, ministry representatives and other actors in the field of education at the national, local and school levels by developing and publishing the material Creating Resilient Education Systems in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: Considerations for decision-makers at national, local and school level. The document proposes an analysis and reflection framework targeting all levels of decision-making, while guiding recommendations to increase the resilience of education systems, to transform them into flexible systems, dedicated to all children, able to cope with new potential crises by means of the current and new innovative technologies and pedagogies proposed. “The material also aims to preserve and promote quality inclusive education and education for ALL children and young people, especially the most marginalized children, during and after the outbreak and recovery phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

At a national level, with the onset of the pandemic, a series of correlated, intersectoral interventions were proposed in the fields of education and health, so that punctual, emergency solutions can be adopted in different local contexts, adapted to the constraints, limitations and needs of each county, from each school (e.g. The Teleschool programme, centralizing open educational resources published on digital.educred.ro).

At the level of Bacău County, under the coordination of the County School Inspectorate, a series of support interventions took place between March and June 2020, equally focused on identifying the needs of students and teachers in the context of supporting online teaching-learning, as well as on facilitating the access of all children to education, especially those who are marginalized, from disadvantaged families, in whose case there is a risk of deepening and further learning gaps during the pandemic. The main actions taken were:

- distribute the invitation initiated by the MER towards teachers to participate in an initial training on the use of educational platforms between 19-25 March 2020;

- disseminate information on platforms that can provide optimal support for online learning (to teachers, principals, parents and students), including the presentation of their benefits or limitations (April 2020);

- information on the support by the "School on the Net" MER partners of a webinar intended for principals and inspectors in which examples of good practices on the implementation of online learning at the level of schools were presented;

- promote and coordinate the specific steps of the call for Euro 200 financial aid in order to stimulate the purchase of computers in 2020;

- centralize, at the Bacău County level, the need for tablets for secondary school and high -school students from disadvantaged families, in order to continue the study at home, as a result of the intention of Bacău County Council to provide devices that can support online teaching;

- centralize and communicate to the MER the number of students and teachers who could not participate in online learning activities (15,912 students and 788 teachers);

- keep track of the educational units that applied in the extraordinary call for project proposals launched by the Central European Initiative (May 2020);

- promote initiatives such as: the Digital Nation - Being a Teacher in the online medium programme, the national selection Creating education;

- conduct weekly video conferences with school principals in the Bacău County to discuss issues of online learning and identify solutions to adapt the teaching process to new contexts and provide quality inclusive education.

Context

The gaps between urban and rural areas in terms of access to resources needed for online learning were significant in Bacău County. Late March, the aggregate data from the field thus highlighted the involvement in distance learning activities of 38,775 students from urban areas (representing 86.93%) and 19,441 students from rural areas (only 69.25%). According to the analysis carried out at the level of the school inspectorate, 6,378 students in urban areas, and 9,604 students in rural areas did not have access to online learning platforms because they face problems such as lack of electricity, Internet access and a necessary device (smartphone, computer or tablet). Initiatives to cover these needs were taken both at the level of the Bacău County Council, by assigning funds for purchasing tablets for vulnerable children / students, and by submitting the application form by CSI Bacău on the extraordinary call for project proposals launched by the Central European Initiative - The area of education and distance learning / e-learning, through which a number of 10 pre-university education units and the County school inspectorate in Bacău applied for the endowment with equipment (soft and hard components, interactive lessons, access to webinars, etc.) for the process educational during the state of emergency and not only, with direct addressability to 928 beneficiary students and 230 teachers.

This document was drafted by the school managers getting directly involved, while also taking into account their proposals and the approach perspectives based on the school managers’ consultation with their own students and their families, as well as with the teaching staff with respect to the three potential options for carrying out teaching/learning/assessment activities during the new school year.

The synthesis of the arguments and opinions brought by these categories of beneficiaries on the three scenarios includes the following:

A. From the students’ point of view

• the regular course attendance model, under strict requirements of protecting the health of all school stakeholders

- this option is the most preferred by students, as they feel overstrained and exhausted, especially the students who have actively attended the online activities;

- the students raised the need for a clear, properly designed schedule organized from the effort curve perspective;

- the students consider this option to be the most beneficial for those who run the risk of school drop-out;

- they appreciate that this option gives them the opportunity to ensure equal chances and differentiated treatment, by supporting the requirements of children with special educational needs in an appropriate manner, which is much more difficult, unless impossible to achieve if the other scenarios are considered.

• organizing the courses according to a mixed/hybrid model - this is an option accepted by students, as it allows, despite restrictions, for human

interactions that students need so much;- they consider this option partially gives a chance to students who run the risk of school

drop-out, if they are provided with tailor-made technical and material learning resources;- students consider their classmates with special education needs should receive aid and

support from colleagues by means of peer teaching and peer mentoring interventions;

Analyses and approaches proposed

- this is not deemed a viable solution for preschoolers, as it creates educational and group-adaptation gaps, the specific of this age being especially the development of social and emotional skills.

• organizing exclusively online courses- this option is not appreciated by the large majority of students, who invoke the lack of actual

support for learning from teachers under the current circumstances, the lack of appropriate, personalized feedback, and the impossibility to apply knowledge and skills learned far from specialized labs or the practice areas specific for various education profiles and specializations.

B. From the teachers’ and the school staff’s point of view

- THE TEACHING STAFF

• The hybrid course model under strict requirements of protecting the health of all school stakeholders

- it is a partially preferred option, the most frequent arguments being related to a significant effort required and an extensive lapse of time for preparing, designing, and carrying out the teaching, learning, and assessment processes online.

• organizing exclusively online courses- this option is not appreciated by the large majority of teachers, among the most frequent

arguments being: the inability of many families to provide students with the necessary support to complete learning in this format; the issue of ensuring and monitoring students’ attendance in online activities and in autonomous, subsequent learning, by using online platforms and digital resources proposed by teachers or identified by students themselves; the urgent need for training and the lack of time needed for a real and substantial empowerment of teachers not only in terms of capitalizing on educational technology applications, but also on creating digital content by school subjects and capitalizing on techniques and tools for assessing student progress in this context.

- THE SCHOOL STAFF

• The regular frequency course model- this option is not preferred at all, as the current staff is far from being enough considering the

measures to reduce the number of students in a classroom / of preschoolers in a group -schools do not have enough medical staff to select the students at the beginning of the school days, nor to provide the necessary medical aid during the school day.

C. From the families’ point of view• The regular frequency course model- this is the option preferred by most parents, their arguments being mainly the lack of

skills/availability for assisting their children during the online or mixed educational activities (no much time available, the lack of enough devices for each family member, the lack of appropriate space, etc.).

Given the educational process is being planned during uncertain times, and the potential scenarios require subtle arrangements for every beneficiary and resource involved, in line with the specific local backgrounds and with the realities and constraints/opportunities underlying each education institution, this document also proposes several general suggestions which can be taken into account as potential landmarks irrespective of the option or the scenario to be adopted:

✔ each school/community shall decide the way it tackles the new school year depending on the resources at hand, on contextual challenges, the local epidemiologic situations, the limitations and opportunities, while justifying the option they have chosen;

✔ enable best practice exchanges among schools and communities with respect to the solutions implemented and the specific contexts experienced;

✔ collect some data, which are absolutely necessary for documenting and grounding the new decisions and action plans before returning to school with respect to children/students (attendance rate to online schooling from March to June 2020; identify the vulnerable children; identify the main support needs) and their families (work schedule, people who can stay with the child while their parents are at work, number of children per family, access to online education, material resources and digital skills, readiness to accompany the child during the home schooling process);

✔ improve the integrated IT system of the Romanian education system (SIIIR), to be able to identify and support students who have not been registered yet, those who will not be registered with the schooling system, or are in danger of not attending online education;

✔ trainings on online education shall be organized at the initiative of every school holistically, by making reference to common practices, collaborative teaching, assessment, and well-being, while having the opportunity to capitalize the training programs proposed/launched by the Ministry of Education;

✔ the institutions certified in the field of education and health should provide counseling and information to schools as a priority, and only subsequently to have decisions taken with respect to legal consequences, provided the norms and rules proposed are not observed;

✔ establish monitoring systems for the students shifting from one education cycle to another one;✔ actual support from the administrative and territorial units through the social services,

with respect to vulnerable families, access to education, and concrete measures to boost school attendance;

✔ amendments of the codes of conduct or of other safeguard policies, including risk management plans and emergency protocols at the school level (benefitting from support and guidance from the Ministry of Education and Research and from the Ministry of Health);

✔ provide counseling and psychological, social, and emotional support for children, students, parents, and staff members, who feel affected by the conditions imposed by the new pandemic context, especially for vulnerable children. Promote campaigns aimed at reducing stigmatization and fears related to contagion or contamination at the school level (staff, students, families);

✔ identify the priorities of each and every school, review the budget to cover the cost for the measures needed for preparing the return to school under circumstances promoting inclusion, safety, and health, by supplying quality education (additional funding from the central and local authorities, from non-governmental organizations, and from the community; review the priorities of the expenditure plans);

✔ call on the local authorities, the community leaders, associations, civil society organizations, and the business community to support the efforts to return to school, including to establish social safety networks for the most vulnerable staff and students (printed educational resources, digital devices, Internet data, cash transfers, food distribution, or child care, etc.).

Recommendations for the general framework

CHALLENGES PROPOSED SOLUTIONS PRIORITY SUPPORT NEEDS

PREMISES, TIMETABLE, NUMBER OF STUDENTS

I n s u f f i c i e n t room for s m a l l e r groups of c h i l d r e n /students;

Impossibility to teach all classes in the same time interval with smaller c l a s s e s /groups.

Flexible timetable, smaller groups/classes, reorganised classrooms/spaces:a. preschool:

up to 6 children in a group, preferably the same throughout the day, but changing the group membership during the school year. Alternative: number of children in group is determined pro rata to the available floor area (size of classrooms); possibly, fewer periods for each preschool group, from 8:00 to 11:00 at the latest, with disinfection breaks every 50 minutes; maybe giving up full-day schooling and switching to regular school days, to strictly deliver teaching-learning process; hybrid groups for all-day and regular hours school, to reduce the number of preschool students in the afternoon programme;

b. primary and lower secondary: maximum 15 students per class;

c. high school: maximum 18 students per class (considering that the enrolment plan has already been approved, two classes may be reorganised into three, so that the number of classes would increase but not double;

School autonomy - freedom of decision, considering the available school spaces, number of usual school shifts etc. Scholls that are short of space could relocate some classes to surplus spaces in other schools or use modern containers.Organise kindergartens’ outdoors spaces to carry out more activities in open air (centres/areas/zones/corners may be set up to stimulate various areas of children’s development. Mandatory to carry out two outdoors activities every day, depending on the weather conditions.Suspend the “Different School” programme at all education levels.

Amending LEN. Article 63 - number of students (reduce the number of children/students in class/group, considering that the enrolment figures have already been approved).

Financial support for buying containers for schools that are short of space.

PERSONNEL

Insufficient teaching, non-teaching, support and medical staff.

- identify and employ extra teaching, non-teaching, support and medical staff;

- identify back-up human resources for possible situations where teaching/auxiliary staff get sick;

- access to a data base of trainee teachers to fill-in some teaching positions, as well as partnerships to employ (where doable) students to support teaching activities (their support could be called upon when a school is short of staff; involvement of volunteers, tutors, mentors);

Appropriate extra financial resources to pay teaching staff, given that the number of classes/groups could double.

SCENARIO 1: School starts with full attendance by students, whilst rigorous measures are put in place to protect all school stakeholders’ health.

teaching-learning-assessment process

PERSONNEL

- assign hygiene/school nurses to assess any shortcomings in the observance of health rules and help with monitoring the children/students/staff health status and with implementing the rules proposed by the PHDs and relevant ministries.

Financial resources allocated for all categories of personnel that will be supplemented.New rules on higher education and pedagogical high school students’ teaching experience stints.

CURRICULUM, TEACHING-LEARNING-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES

- Organise and deliver remedial and catch-up activities for children/students who did not attend online/distance learning.

- Each school to introduce differentiated/customised curriculum accommodations, in consultation with the teaching staff - perhaps designate a school workgroup for this purpose (the accommodations shall take into account the differences caused by unequal access to online learning in March - June. particularisation - preschool education: develop or provide teachers with references/resources for friendly teaching approaches, adequate to the current situation, limiting interactions/prolonged contact between children (A set of resources dedicated to preschools, for a safe and friendly approach to children's return to kindergarten, is provided to professionals by CEDP Step by Step).

- Collaborative teaching in schools, where there are several classes per academic year: particularisation - primary education- example 1: in a school with 90 pupils in the preparatory class, 6 teachers can teach between 8:00-10:00 hours - 30’ classes, 10’ breaks; between 11:00-13:00, the same algorithm for the 3rd grade);- example 2: preparatory class: 30’ class, 5’ break - the 4th grade ends at 10:20/10:50, as per the number of hours in the framework plan. The interval 11:00-12:00 may be allocated for disinfecting and ventilating classrooms; then, from 12:30, lower secondary may start, with 40’ classes.

- Mandatory outdoors activities every day, others than physical education and sports (at all levels of education, at subject matters where possible).

The Ministry of Education and Research to develop sets of procedures regulating teaching-learning-assessment in the current context.


Extremely difficult to ensure safety and health conditions for all the personnel and children/students.

Before the beginning of the school year, PHD to issue an opinion/present its rules and authorise the school based on a verification process - schools should not start operating based on principals’ assuming responsibility. The aspects to be remedied shall be first notified to the principals; only after such notification will sanctions be applied, should the school fail to comply with the rules.

Organise and carry out visits by public health experts and/or government agencies before the start of the school year, to ensure that it is safe to open the schools.

Where possible, mobilise the support of local clinics or county/local health authorities for the schools.

Identify a system or a mechanism for collecting specific data on COVID-19, including suspected and confirmed cases among students and personnel (regulating the schools’ access to such data that PHDs have), with a view to ensuring inter-sectoral interventions at maximum efficiency and speed.

PHD and relevant ministries to develop rules and methodologies to ensure hygiene and sanitary requirements are met.

Local councils to allocate sufficient funds, in correlation with the issues found and recommendations made by the PHDs.

Clear procedures regulating all school actions/activities - based on rules issued by the PHDs and national authorities.

The Ministry of Education and research and the Ministry of Health to enter partnerships aimed at running awareness campaigns focused on the observance of hygiene rules and standards in schools.


- Authorities should support technological high schools, for pupils to undergo the necessary internships in the hotels and restaurants industry, to gain professional experience; otherwise, the peril is that students might not benefit from such training that is vital for their future. - Together with the school staff and counsellor, develop guidelines for identifying and preventing bullying, discrimination and stigmatisation of students and teachers in relation to COVID-19.

safety and hygiene

CHALLENGES PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

Attitude of some parents who, for various reasons (related to their perception regarding the COVID-19 context, but also to their overall attitude to schooling their children), do not support and encourage school attendance of preschool and school pupils.At least in the case of preschool children, difficulty in managing parents’ coming in and going out of kindergartens/schools whilst complying with all safety and hygiene requirements.

- parents to accept quarantine when community transmitted disease cases appear;- prohibit parents’ access to the school/kindergarten; procedures for dropping off and picking up children to/from kindergarten without entering the school premises;- reduce the number of out-of-school extracurricular activities to reduce the number of possible contacts from outside the family;- ensure that all the rules, standards and procedures newly developed to ensure children’s/students’ and staff’s health and safety are communicated to the families.

school-family-community relations


SCENARIO 2: School starts with a blended/hybrid teaching system (taking turns, half a class comes to school and half attends online), whilst rigorous measures are put in place to protect all school stakeholders’ health.



- reconfigure the cohorts for each educational cycle considering the shortage of space and already oversized classes/groups;- develop flexible timetables that do not overburden teachers;- reorganise learning spaces such as to limit contact between individuals and avoid the use of too many teaching materials that cannot be easily disinfected after their individual use.

- Encourage the participation of all preschool and school students in a minimum number of activities proposed by the teacher, and develop an online attendance taking procedure;- Online teaching shall be asynchronous;- Flexible timetable and reorganisation of the learning space (preschool education - up to 6 or depending on the available space, primary education - up to 12 students in a class, lower secondary - up to 15 students in class, high school - up to 18 students per class, preferably the same throughout the day); example: for the primary cycle, if the class duration is reduced to 30’ and two shifts learning is permitted, this becomes a viable solution, even where space is insufficient. Thus, preparatory classes’ timetable - 4th grade ends at 10:20/10:50, as per the number of hours in the framework plan. The interval 11:00-12:00 may be allocated for disinfecting and ventilating classrooms, and from 12:30 the remaining half of the students may come to class. The school day ends at 16:00 hours;

Regulations on preparing timetables, recording pupils’ absences (including from online activities).

Financial and technical support for access to learning platforms.

Schools to be provided with sets of instructions on monitoring truancy in distance, online and blended learning in emergency situations.



- One option for allocating learning time by educational cycle: one day primary cycle, one day lower secondary. Online teaching is delivered on the day when not in school. Two arguments: it is much easier to monitor students’ attendance and teaching efforts is coherent;- On the day when students stay home, online activities are delivered via a platform selected by the school, with direct interaction (type ZOOM) and indirect (type GOOGLE CLASSROOM). Online activities must be synchronous and asynchronous, including monitoring students’ learning activities and feedback from teachers;- The timetable and activities shall be organised so that, should for objective, technical reasons, a student miss an online activity this would not impact on his/her progress.

This scenario is not seen as a viable solution for pupils in the preparatory, 1st and 2nd grades, since it generates educational disruptions and difficulties in children's group habituation. Moreover, this is the age when literacy and numeracy skills are formed (writing, reading, calculating), and the online environment cannot efficiently support such learning.Still, one possible solution could be to develop an optimal timetable and consider it on the principle all pupils come to school on day one (split in two groups, shift one and shift two) and all stay home learning online on day 2.

- Priority to attending face-to-face learning should be given to students who live closer to the school, and those who live more than 20 km away and who need accommodation to be provided with online courses. Given the measures that must be observed in school dormitories, the number of accommodated students will decrease by half, and the cost of food services will increase significantly. Meals will be served at the canteen, observing physical distancing (2m) between 07.00-08.30 (depending on the number of residents) - this will require good management to control class tardiness.- Recording absences from online classes. This should create a mandatory class attendance regulatory framework.- For students lacking access to technology, the school may opt for face-to-face classes, observing the fairness principle, as a solution until the remediation of the family situation.

PERSONNEL

Insufficient teaching, non-teaching, support and medical staff

Insufficient and uneven digitalisation level

Need for training in curriculum accommodations and blended teaching/learning/assessment

Employ or second for a limited period of time sufficient medical staff. Employ or second for a limited period of time janitors from other institutions, not necessarily from schools.

- Provide teachers with training programmes for enhancing digital skills and supporting curriculum accommodations for online teaching for all, and in particular for disabled and/or SEN, children.- For preschool education, develop or provide teachers with references/resources for friendly teaching approaches, adequate to the current situation, limiting interactions/prolonged contact between children;- Primary education teachers willing to work two shifts, including afternoons;- Paying teachers according to the number of teaching hours (e.g. if a class of 30 is split into three cohorts of 10, the number of teaching hours triples, plus the payment for online teaching hours);- Reimburse the cost of certain computer applications (e.g. advanced Zoom) bought by teachers to deliver online teaching;- Develop efficient courses, with hands-on examples of activities in blended learning (individual accessing of programmes as preferred by each teacher should be supplemented with consistent training sessions in each school, which would ensure consistent and owned teaching practices across schools).

- Protect teaching and auxiliary staff’s rights and working conditions (considering inter alia: their family commitments and personal risk factors; possibility to travel safely to and from school; capacity to provide a minimum number of daily training hours; risks associated to each job and workplace: teaching, canteen, dormitory/boarding house, other administrative and care personnel).- Teachers may experience psychological and socio-emotional stress caused by prolonged isolation, so that they should be provided with permanent psychological and socio-emotional evaluations, support and counselling, to develop their stress management skills and coping mechanisms or should be referred to experts in individual cases where necessary.- Prioritising psychological and social-emotional support for vulnerable and at-risk teachers, including the elderly, those with pre-existing medical conditions or those disadvantaged by lower resources and higher burdens caused by taking on extra shifts or delivering blended teaching.

Amending continuing teacher training methodology.

Make it mandatory for all teachers to take online teaching training programmes and obtain the relevant certificates (with no focus on credits, but on participation and acquiring distance teaching/learning skills, combining digital and classroom learning, and online formative assessment).

Financial support for such training courses (supplement appropriations for this chapter of schools’ budgets).

Provide supplementary wages funds required to pay school personnel who work the extra hours necessary to deliver face to face and online teaching.

PERSONNEL

- Reduce teachers’ workload by simplifying or reducing the paperwork and other administrative tasks.- Adapt teachers’ performance evaluations, considering the impact of the crisis on the staff roles and the changes in teaching practices caused by physical distancing measures.- Explore ways to recognise and reward teachers and other personnel in performance evaluations for the extraordinary working conditions they operate in and the skills they acquire during the COVID-19 crisis.

- Provide free, dedicated training to IT experts / system engineers / IT&C teachers to acquire/upgrade the skills required to improve educational platforms used for online learning.

Provide teachers and schools with the funds required for the procurement of the hardware and software needed for teaching in this scenario.

Protocols and procedures for risk-based assessment of school personnel to identify the most vulnerable to infections (e.g. elderly, with comorbidities, with family members who were COVID-19 positive etc.)

Provide psychological and socio-emotional evaluation of teachers.

Adapt the new annual teacher performance assessment methodologies and standards, considering the specifics of blended teaching-learning-assessment.

Develop national mechanisms in support of school personnel, such as mentoring schemes, networks of schools, online communities of practice or online courses, throughout the school year.


- Lack of quality hardware for transmitting live to students learning online.

- Accommodations to the curriculum (by condensation /prioritisation) and assessment methodologies, based on the revised school timetables and the instructions issued by the central and local authorities (in preschool education, consistent curriculum design for all children, irrespective whether face to face or online / distance learning);

- Plans for accelerated learning and remedial education for students with learning difficulties, in particular disadvantaged or who have suffered more significant learning disruption.

- Methodological support and regulations on planning and designing blended learning activities, by education cycles, levels and subject matters.- Prioritise and adapt programmes, with a focus on basic academic skills.


- The risk exists of students overstrain and implicit failure, if the notions not taught in the previous year will be delivered alongside the ones of this year.- Some students and even some teachers, in particular in rural areas, have insufficient or poor abilities to access and use electronic educational resources for online learning.

- The infrastructure in most schools is inadequate for online classes.- Occurrence / intensification in students and teachers of specific diseases caused by many hours in front of the computer (obesity, spine conditions, eyes conditions etc.)

- The initial learning assessment which took place from home, in March - June, must be followed by flexible teaching-learning approaches (accelerated and remedial education strategies) to meet the needs of all students.- Continuing online learning on a platform shared by the entire school, ensuring transparency of educational and assessment process.- Videos shot / prepared by teachers and live sessions to take place in school.- Teaching materials for demonstrative experiments may be borrowed from school if the teacher delivers online classes from his/her home.- Under NO circumstances will the parents / students’ agreement be required to enter a mark in the roll.- Tests may be organised with half a class (first in alphabetical order) in one period and with the other half in the following period, with different topics that cover the same skills and are equally difficult.- Collaborative teaching in schools, where there are several classes per academic year: example, lower secondary education: teachers of one discipline share the subject matter for each class, prepare online materials (without overlaps), and the face-to-face sessions are used for digesting/understanding/assessment.

- For this year, suspend the “Different School” programme to gain time for catching up on subject matters.- Carry out rapid and continuing assessments of students’ progress and wellbeing, and tackling fairness and inclusion gaps and threats.- Together with the school staff and counsellor, develop guidelines for identifying and preventing bullying, discrimination and stigmatisation of students and teachers in relation to COVID-19.- Supply the schools with integrated video-audio equipment, to provide optimal conditions for live broadcasting of classes to students attending online. Equip the schools with video cameras (not surveillance) required for recording teaching and learning.- Provide students and teachers with the devices required for online education.- Include in IT&C classes topics related to the use of devices in online classes. Free training provision for teachers to improve their virtual teaching skills, knowledge of developing electronic materials etc.

- Regulations and rules on filming lessons in school (for students who watch the classes from home in real time).

- Teaching guides on remedial and accelerated education in the context of blended learning.

- New regulations on examinations, adapted to the blended/hybrid scenario.

- Legal provisions on the suspension of the national programme “A Different School” in the academic year 2020-2021.

- Supplement schools’ budgets to buy IT equipment (including integrated audio-video systems to film the lessons and broadcast them live to students attending class from home).

- The Ministry of Education and Research to access funds for the digitalisation of schools.


- School system engi-neers or IT experts may not have the skills requ-ired to develop / im-prove online learning platforms, and thus be unable to support those who might ask for help.

- Access funds for digitalisation of schools, Internet connections and procure digital learning packages. (The current monthly Internet plans do not allow schools to broadcast lessons in real time, therefore, new contracts must be entered into with specialized companies to provide each level of each school building with high speed fibre-optic connections, allowing real time information flows).

- Provide students with psychological and medical support to mitigate the health impacts of long-term exposure to and interaction with various types of devices.


- lack of experience and standards / rules / procedures on the measures to be taken by schools in this context.

Before the beginning of the school year, PHD to issue an opinion and authorise the schools based on a verification process - schools should not start based on principals’ assuming responsibility.- Designate hygiene/school nurses to visit monthly and assess any shortcomings in the observance of rules.- Develop specific health and security protocols for the personnel, students and wider school community, to guide physical distancing and risk-prevention behaviours, supplemented by guides that are to be presented to and discussed with all employees, students and their families.- Organise and carry out visits by public health experts and/or government agencies before the start of the school year, to ensure that it is safe to reopen the schools. Where possible, mobilise the support of local clinics or county/local health authorities for the schools.

- Local Councils to allocate sufficient funds, in correlation to the aspects found by the Public Health Department.

- Clear procedures regulating all school actions/activities - based on rules issued by the PHDs and national authorities.

- Information guides, leaflets, posters promoting hygiene and safety rules developed by category of audience (for preschool children, pupils of various ages, parents and school personnel) available in schools.

- Financial support to hire healthcare experts to advice school management on the applicability of certain health and hygiene norms, depending on the specifics of each community and school / school building.

safety and hygiene


- Identify a system or a mechanism for collecting specific data on COVID-19, including suspected and confirmed cases among students and personnel.- Possibly, set up teams of comprising certain numbers of teachers (depending on the number of buildings) to check how students interact on hallways and courtyard during recesses.

- Online assistance, possibly a hotline, from healthcare experts to teachers, management teams and parents on health and hygiene issues associated to children's school attendance.


Poor IT resources and parents’ low levels of digital knowledge in many families.

- Enter partnerships with the parents to continue / expand / support the learning of children in the family, to the extent permitted by working hours, number of children, online learning abilities and knowledge, willingness to support children’s home learning. In preschool education: possible legal sanctions if parents fail to deliver on their pledges related to children's participation in activities online.- Prohibit parents’ access in school / kindergarten. Ban activities involving the presence of the parents.- Ensure that key information is passed on to parents, caregivers and families (through posters, e-mails, leaflets, SMS, WhatsApp etc.) on the preparations made by the school to enforce the hygiene and sanitation protocols and on the new applicable rules.- Ensure that parents are informed about the new provisions of the regulation and the procedures laid down by the school to secure a safe, healthy inclusive and quality learning environment.- Eliminate the parent’s agreement on sequences of the teaching process (e.g. assessment) or restrictions on online delivery vs face-to-face delivery.- Considering how easy it is for students to use the online learning time to access various websites for entertainment purposes rather than for learning, it is critical to optimise communication with families, possibly by setting up WhatsApp groups (where non-existent) so that the school may inform them about their children's daily schedules.

school-family-community relations


PERSONNEL, TIMETABLE

- Unequal and insufficient development of teachers’ skills required for online teaching-learning-assessment; poor capacity to access digital resources and platforms, to develop digital learning materials and use attractive and motivating teaching methods.- It is impossible for a teacher to deliver optimal online courses when the other adult supporting the family does not have access to technical unemployment benefits and the teacher has to deliver online training while taking care of their own child at the same

- Preschool teachers’ training includes no elements of online teaching. Poor digital skills of kindergarten teachers and lack of concrete examples of using efficient methods.

- Redesign the duration of an online class and categories of activities proposed to students.- Form groups of experts to develop guidelines and methodologies with concrete and efficient examples of online teaching-learning-assessment for various ages and disciplines.- Train teachers to reconfigure the entire educational practice in online context.- Amend the relevant laws to grant unemployment benefits to certain categories of employees.- Teachers should have free access to online learning resources / materials developed at national level (digital manuals, digital auxiliary materials) to provide equal chances to all students, in particular to the disadvantaged (in rural areas, ethnic minorities, with special education needs).


It is impossible to provide exclusively online education in kindergarten, given the age and the need to mainly develop social-emotional skills, which require socialisation, direct contact with the adult and peers.- Poor access to online learning for a significant number of the school population (caused either by lack of financial resources, by the large number of children in a family, or by the parents working online from home and occupying the device available at home). Rural areas exist where Internet connections are poor or non-existent, which does not provide equal education chances to all students and leads to deepening the already existing gaps.- Home learning conditions are different from household to household; both students and teachers have noted that the presence of other family members is a distraction, stress factor. Also, other family members (siblings, parents, children etc.) working on line at the same limits access to devices.

- Selecting from the curriculum such topics that may be learned online, also considering the possibility of minimal support from some parents or lack thereof.- Access to recognised, official online platforms that are easy to use by the students (and parents, in the case of preschool children, given the need for direct contact between the pre-schooler through the educator).- Procurement of technological resources government programmes or European funds, so that all students and teachers might have access to this type of learning. - High energy consumption and data traffic involve increased electricity and Internet costs that are covered out-off-pocket by parents and teachers: supplementary financial resources must be allocated for such expenditure.

SCENARIO 3: School starts exclusively online, using digital learning platforms and resources (alternatively, through other forms of distance learning, where access to technology is limited and Internet connectivity is poor)




• Lodging not more than 4 students in a room that can accommodate 7 will limit the number of boarding students. For this reason, children who live far from the school and cannot afford private lodging might drop out of school.• Lack of toilets in each room (one bathroom is available on each floor) could lead to interactions between students, favouring infection hotbeds.• It is difficult for one person alone to permanently check on and monitor the students (pedagogue or night supervisor), as currently allocated per shift.

- Call a meeting with the parents that applied for boarding in the school dormitory to agree who can afford and accept to have their children in private lodging. Thus, the students accommodated in the dormitory may be selected, based on their families’ resources, such as to limit the number of lodgers in each room.- Schools to develop procedures on boarding house/dormitory behaviour, strict scheduling of personal hygiene times by room, including shower access etc.- All students and parents to receive training on the behaviour rules while on boarding house/dormitory premises and sign that they accept such rules, to facilitate monitoring by the supervisors.


- Possible copyright infringement by the free circulation of educational materials developed by teachers and their reluctance to be filmed in their own homes.- Quality and efficiency of teaching are significantly reduced in the absence of the classroom-specific and school context interhuman relations.- Many SEN students are not recommended the use of devices, given the treats of their disabilities/dysfunctions and specific support needs.- Lack of human interaction will lead in time to alienation.- Major risk to students and teachers’ health posed by the large number of hours spent in front of computers or other types of devices.- Sciences cannot be efficiently taught exclusively online - they need applications and permanent interaction.- In the case of high schools with boarding and canteen premises, this scenario would mean unemployment for the canteen and dormitory personnel.

- Mandatory participation of preschool/school students in a minimum number of activities proposed by the teacher, and developing an online attendance taking procedure.- Access to learning platforms or other distance learning resources must be appended with printed learning kits for children from disadvantaged areas / families without access to online resources.

Regarding the preschool level:- Simplifying the preschool curriculum to compel the children to carry out a minimum required number of educational activities per day, which should not involve too much technology or parents’ support.- Many of the outcomes listed in the early education curriculum (official document) will be impossible to be covered in distance learning, so the teaching process might not be up to expectations.- We can anticipate that some parents, mainly those from all-day schooling, will be discouraged by this form of organisation and keep their children home. If in the autumn the same conditions will be maintained for the operation of kindergartens as in the summer, some parents will be even less prepared to bring their children there.

BOARDING SERVICES IN THE HYBRID SCENARIO



• In the period 2-12 of June when students participated in Baccalaureate preparation, PHD imposed restrictive conditions that could only be met by 2-3 boarding schools from Bacau.• Must higher costs for procuring hygiene and maintenance materials.• Lack of any control on students’ traveling to and from school in weekends, when they go home. Lack of any control on students maintaining the physical distance over 24 hours or on the interactions and contacts they have while at home.

PHD to identify middle-of-the-way solutions on the requirements imposed on boarding schools, more realistic and adapted to the objective situation of such premises.- Town halls to provide the money required for procuring such materials.- Controlling boarding students 24/24 is almost impossible and somewhat superfluous given that the youths have been interacting out of school throughout the summer holiday (in fact, from the lifting of the state of emergency) and will continue to do so. They can only be reminded during all, and in particular in educational/counselling classes all the hygiene rules that they must observe. Through frequency, repetition and verification of compliance with the rules, the students may form habits that they may then in turn disseminate in their families and communities.- Put out calls for proposals of internationally funded projects to obtain funds for renovating boarding houses, considering that the schools could not access directly such funds exclusively allocated for the rehabilitation of physical facilities, modernise premises etc.



• Usually, serving food in canteens raises no special issues and challenges, because spaces are ample, and where there is less room smaller series of students may be organised, such as to keep the safety distance.• The lower number of students present in the boarding home at one time will implicitly lead to increased cost of meals.• Same as in other chapters, the major challenge is associated to the significantly higher amounts of money allocated to the procurement of cleaning, hygiene etc. materials.

Each school to develop procedures for the canteen operation and use, adapted to the schools’ objective conditions. - Subsidies to cover higher cost of meals.

CANTEEN SERVICES

Document developed by:

Ioan Cristinel Albu, Lower Secondary School GaiceanaCarmen Antohe, National College "Costache Negri", Targu OcnaAdina Roxana Bastea, School no. 2, Targu OcnaLavinia Baisan, National Pedagogical College “Stefan cel Mare”, BacauSorin Bostan, Lower Secondary School “Constantin Platon”, BacauConstantin Ciofu, Technological College "Grigore Antipa", BacauAmalia Diaconu, CJRAE BacauOana Maria Droiman, National College “V. Alecsandri”, BacauAna-Maria Egarmin, I.S.J. BacauAnca Stefania Herghea, Lower Secondary School ”Miron Costin”, BacauDaniela Marian, Lower Secondary School "Stefan cel Mare", ZemesTatiana Namolosanu, Theoretical High School "Henri Coanda", BacauLuminița Prisecaru, Lower Secondary School FrumoasaElena Rosca, Lower Secondary School “Alecu Russo”, BacauSimona Andreea Sova, Technological College for Communications “N. V. Karpen”, BacauAlina Crina Terinte, Lower Secondary School Nr. 1, SanduleniMaria Lucica Ursachi Bobei, Technological College “Al. Vlahuța”, Podu TurculuiAlina Zabrauțanu, Lower Secondary School Nr. 1, Sarata

Coordinators:

Cristina Badea, Education Officer UNICEF in RomaniaLuminița Costache, Education Specialist UNICEF in Romania

recommendations for starting a safe school year 2020-2021

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