Parents of schoolchildren who learn from home don’t necessarily have to count on reclaiming the dinner table soon.
After two academic years have been thrown off course by the pandemic, school leaders across the country are planning the possibility of more distance learning at the start of yet another school year.
“We have no illusions that COVID will be eradicated by the time the school year begins,” said William “Chip” Sudderth III, a spokesman for schools in Durham, North Carolina, whose students have not had school buildings since March. .
President Joe Biden has reopened schools a top priority, but administrators say there is much to consider as new strains of the coronavirus emerge and teachers await vaccinations in turn.
And while many parents are demanding that schools reopen completely, others say they don’t feel safe sending children back to class until vaccines are available to even young students. Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top public health expert, said late last month that the Biden government hopes to start vaccinating children by late spring or early summer.
By then, the districts are in full preparation for the next school year.
“Until 2021-22, part of that school year is likely to still be a pandemic response, assuming children don’t have access to the vaccine, or at least many don’t,” said Superintendent Brian Woods, of Northside Independent School District, one of the largest districts in Texas.
That could mean a more teacher-friendly version of the mix of personal and distance learning now taking place, one where teachers don’t have to instruct two groups at the same time. That could be accomplished by splitting staff or rearranging schedules, he said, and adding a longer term could be a completely outside option for students who have permanently switched from the traditional school.
“There will be some element of the ghost that can’t go back into the bottle,” Woods said. “I think now there will always be a group of families who want a virtual option. … We know we can, but are we willing to do it? “
Faced with the same reality, California’s West Contra Costa Unified School District is planning a new K-12 Virtual Academy for 2021-22.
“One thing we learned during the pandemic is that teaching and learning is different now, and it won’t be quite what we used to think was ‘normal’,” read the January agenda item for the Education Board.
The pivot to distance learning last March has proven to be a lifeline for the education system, but concerns about its effects on racial inequalities are growing every month., the academic performance of students, attendance and their overall well-being.
In Durham, North Carolina, schools – which have been completely remote since March – announced last month that it would remain so until the end of the current academic year.
In addition, Sudderth said, “the prevalence of the disease will determine what we can do.”
The guideline for whether the district with 32,000 students could transition from distance to hybrid learning in January was a test positivity rate of less than 4%. But it’s unclear whether that statistic or others set so far by states or districts will hold.
Biden, in an early executive order, instructed his education secretary to provide “evidence-based guidance” and advice to schools on how to conduct safe personal learning.
“I hope we don’t have to do hybrid, but I don’t want to get into a position where we haven’t quite thought about it,” said Eva Moskowitz, whose 47 Success Academy Charter Schools enroll 20,000 students. in New York City.
Successful students have signed up for full days of live remote instruction on school-supplied laptops and tablets since the start of the school year, an exhausting endeavor that Moskowitz plans to end for the current school year on May 28. The school 2021-22. the year then starts on August 2, possibly in a hybrid format.
“I really don’t know what the odds are” to continue the distance learning until the next school year, she said.
“Logic would tell me we shouldn’t, but my knowledge of government makes me a bit hesitant,” she said, noting the sometimes conflicting city and state guidelines and the slow start to the introduction of vaccines.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has vowed that schools in the country’s largest school district “will be back to full strength by September.”
“Everyone wants to be back,” he said.
But the head of the powerful teachers’ union, Michael Mulgrew, says it’s too early to commit. Schools are currently teaching some in-person classes to elementary and pre-K students who want them. A plan announced by De Blasio on Monday will reopen high school buildings February 25, but there is no plan for secondary schools yet.
“It’s a goal of mine, but I can’t say they’ll open,” the president of the United Federation of Teachers said in an interview. His view of the mayor’s promise: “This is not about what you want. This is about what you can do safely. “
Chancellor Richard Carranza acknowledged that while the goal is to be personal school, distance learning “will stay with us” after the pandemic.
“We see this as part of it,” he said at a press conference with de Blasio on Monday.
Mulgrew said it takes more than vaccines for teachers to fully and safely open schools.
He noted that scientists are not yet clear whether vaccinated people can still spread the virus, even if they aren’t sick themselves. And he wonders how comfortable families will be when unvaccinated children and young teens start the New Year unvaccinated.
“This is where it gets difficult. So how do you say you open in September when we have to answer these questions? ” he asked.
A parent coalition in Evanston, Illinois has asked Chief Superintendent Eric Witherspoon what guarantees he could give that Evanston Township High School will provide face-to-face education in the 2021-2022 academic year.
“We are witnessing a real crisis in our community,” said Laurel O’Sullivan, the parent of an Evanston high school junior, by phone. “We are a coalition of medical and mental health experts who, in their community practice, see on a daily basis that children go through a tremendous wave of mental and emotional health crises. … It is a social, emotional and academic crisis that we are seeing. “
The district did not respond to a request for comment.
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Thompson reported from Buffalo, New York. Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz in New York City contributed to this report.