Riverview Charter board, director clashed on reopening plan prior to resignation
On Monday, one week after longtime director Alison Thomas announced her resignation, Riverview Charter School students will return to four days a week of full-time, face-to-face classes — a decision that Thomas and teachers were unhappy with, school emails show.
The decision to make that switch was made by the school’s 11-member board of directors, and opposed by Thomas, according to Riverview parent Nicoala Shiflet.
“Alison specifically said that she was not comfortable with the state her school was in, safety-wise, especially for our middle schoolers,” Shiflet said of the board’s Oct. 15 meeting, two weeks after the full-time hybrid plan was announced.
The school has separate buildings for the elementary and middle grades, and the middle school building is much smaller, with less space for social distancing.
“She had a plan in place to get ready and she asked for Nov. 9, that we would work really hard as a school to be ready by Nov. 9 if the board would allow that, and was pretty much told no,” Shiflet said.
Thomas, who chaired the committee to found the Port Royal charter school in 2009 and began as its director in 2011, announced her resignation on Monday. She will stay in her position until Nov. 1.
Thomas declined to be interviewed for this article.
When asked for an interview, Mary Jordan Lempesis, the chair of Riverview’s board of directors, sent The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette a statement on Thomas’ resignation.
“As many of you will likely agree, this resignation leaves an immediate and tremendous void in our school community,” the board statement reads. “The board is working to appoint an interim director and permanent director and will announce such when they are made.”
Lempesis did not respond to a follow-up email asking for an interview about Thomas’ resignation agreement and the school’s reopening plans.
What is Riverview’s plan?
Since school began on Sept. 28, hybrid students at the K-8 school went to buildings for four “half days” per week. Elementary students went to the Riverview building in the morning, and middle school students went in the afternoon.
Virtual students would have class meetings with teachers and be assigned independent work. Students didn’t eat in the cafeteria, and one day a week, buildings were deep-cleaned and empty of students.
Starting Monday, hybrid students will attend classes for four full days per week, and virtual students will, for the most part, watch along with live Zooms. Students will be virtual on Friday while buildings are deep-cleaned.
The school will continue to offer a virtual learning program until 60 days after the Oct. 26 full-day start, according to a survey of virtual parents sent out by Thomas and obtained by the Packet and Gazette.
Although the results of the parent survey were shared only with the board, the results of a similar survey of teachers were sent to the entire staff and obtained by the newspapers.
According to an Oct. 15 email from Thomas to the school’s employees, 73% of the 64 staff who responded to a reopening survey said they would prefer to stay in the half-day hybrid model over the full-day model.
The school also notified the community via email about a COVID-19 case on Oct. 17, described as “a third grade student who may have been contagious with the virus while at Riverview this past week,” according to the email obtained by the newspapers.
Shiflet called the shift to full-day instruction “unnerving and a little scary.” Her children, one of whom is special needs, were previously allowed to attend school for a full instructional day as part of Riverview’s limited-space “extended access” program.
“I was comfortable enough to send my kids all day, but I’m not comfortable with the whole school going in all day long,” she said. “I have a friend that was doing the part-time hybrid, but she pulled her kid out to do the virtual because she doesn’t feel comfortable.”
Riverview is part of Beaufort County School District, but it’s mostly autonomous as a charter school. The district is using a different hybrid model.
Hybrid students attend two full days of in-person classes per week and learn virtually the other three days. The district has not announced any plans to end its fully virtual class option or to transition to five days a week of face-to-face instruction.
Riverview differs in another significant way from the district: Students have to apply to attend the public school, and are selected through a lottery system with a long waitlist. Shiflet said Friday she hopes that list isn’t used as a bargaining chip moving forward.
“I want the board to hear the parents out and ask what we want, because we’re a part of the school,” she said.
“I know very well that there is a waiting list for Riverview, but I hope the board doesn’t look at that and say, ‘Well, if you’re not happy, go somewhere else.’”