The Hypothesis

Go behind the scenes of a PreK - 8th grade charter school in Santa Fe, New Mexico making decisions around whether to open school for in-person learning and how to do so amid a global pandemic. Set at Turquoise Trail Charter School, the state's oldest and fourth largest charter school, you'll meet teachers and administrators who are grappling with how to walk the fine line between public health and public policy during an historic moment in time. As a charter school, Turquoise Trail is able to make decisions both as a school and as a district and is directly accountable. Given that the school serves students across a wide range of ages, the tradeoffs and unintended consequences of decision making is even more complex. Younger students are more directly in need of in-person learning, given that they learn more through socialization, so the drive to get them in school sooner is urgent. Amid the complexity of site-based decision making in this context, the State of New Mexico's Public Education Department continues to issue guidelines that sometimes alter school opening timelines entirely. Along side the story of this school, topics such as the politics and sociology of schools will be explored in this context.

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The Hypothesis

The Virus: Actual and Perceived

October 06, 2020 • Protect the Pack Productions • Season 1 • Episode 3

This week, as allergy season continues to bloom and the resulting symptoms become confused with COVID-19 symptoms, many students are out from child care at the school, forcing the decision of how to treat this occurrence. Treat it as COVID-19 and alert the school community of a possible outbreak? Ask students to stay home as a precaution? The former risks the spread of the idea that the school is unsafe, when in fact, it is among the safest places that people can visit right now.

In this episode, you'll meet Danielle Garcia, the architect of our safety and operations plan in response to the virus, and go into how the school manages not just the epidemiology of the virus, but the perceived threat that is constantly lying just underneath.

Brought to you by Protect the Pack Productions at Turquoise Trail Charter School, Santa Fe, New Mexico.