By David Tyler

A group of parents advocating for five days a week of in-person instruction sparked a wide-ranging discussion by the Fayetteville-Manlius Board of Education on Monday night.
Board President Marissa Mims and Superintendent Craig Tice said that comparisons between F-M and some districts that are offering five days a week of instruction are somewhat unfair, based on a number of variables, including school populations and building sizes.
Tice said he would provide additional information to the community explaining the reasoning behind some of the decisions the district has made and why some of the suggestions from parents aren’t feasible.
Board member Dan Seidberg asked the administration to consider better utilization of Wednesdays, a day that has been reserved for cleaning the schools and remote office hours for communication between teachers, parents and students.
“We know our teachers have gone above and beyond… in an incredibly difficult year,” Seidberg said. “But we know that there are a lot of students that are just plain struggling, academically, socially, emotionally.”
“Are there other things that we can now start to do differently to help these students that are struggling mightily,” he added. “We all know that in-person is the best form of education.”
Tice said the district is currently reviewing options to offer more of its traditional program to students, but that ramping back up will likely come in stages. Tice said he has been working with administrators and teachers in an effort to develop workable plans to offer more services to students.
“People need to know we’ve been working on this for a while,” Tice said, while reminding the board that this process won’t be quick. “It’s going to be baby steps. We’re going to have to crawl, before we walk, before we run.
“It’s not as though we just started the hybrid model and we’re just trying to get by until the end of the year,” Mims said.