Parents have so many questions about the upcoming school year after the coronavirus pandemic abruptly ended the 2019-2020 spring semester.
Will children go back to class next year? Will school ever be the same for them? How can we teach them to learn and still make a living?
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) tells CBS19 students can go back to school for in-person instruction in the fall.
TEA Commissioner Mike Morath released the following statement on Thursday:
“It will be safe for Texas public school students, teachers and staff to return to school campuses for in-person instruction this fall. But there will also be flexibility for families with health concerns so that their children can be educated remotely, if the parent so chooses.”
Of course, that just scratches the surface of the questions educators and parents have about sending children back to school with coronavirus still spreading. The TEA tells CBS19 detailed guidance on what the school year will look like will be issued by early next week.
At least for our public schools, as of right now, it appears we know the answer to one of our big questions—will our children go back to class next year? But there are so many variables in that. Will school ever be the same for them? What if there's a second wave of COVID-19?
Those are just a few of the questions parents have been asking themselves ever since the school year was abruptly ended by the coronavirus pandemic.
It's not something any of us ever imagined happening and it's certainly not something we planned for. How could we?
CBS19 feels it's important to partner with educators to help keep you informed and get your questions answered.
Earlier this year, we invited superintendents and heads of schools from all over East Texas to a ZOOM town hall. Together, we tackled many topics on how COVID-19 changed the lives of students, teachers, parents and school leaders, as well. We've all been impacted in tremendous ways, both educationally and emotionally.
School districts were forced to pivot to virtual learning without warning, but now as we look to next year, so many questions remain, especially when it comes to what the fall semester will hold for East Texans.
LESSONS LEARNED
Spring Break 2020 turned into the longest of our lives. There were no curious minds walking school halls, no teachers at the head of the class filling young minds with STEM, language arts, fine arts and history. Instead, we all became part of history.
“I’ve heard some people say this changes the school system forever and this e-learning is going to be more and more common," said Pine Tree ISD Superintendent Steve Clugston. "I don't necessarily agree with that. The culture that is created in the classroom is essential. It's part of the kids’ success."
Yet, from March to May, school campuses sat empty empty and virtual learning took over.
“It's been a very strange time and era that we are in right now, but I think it is going to get better," said Tyler ISD Superintendent Dr. Marty Crawford.
Dr. Crawford, Clugston and Sarah Cumming, head of school for Promise Academy in Tyler, all participated in our educational town hall and took time again to help us better understand what they're doing to best prepare students for next year.
"I don't know how the public is going to feel in two months about sending their kids back to school," said Cumming.
There are many legitimate questions, without a lot of clear answers at this point, but that certainly doesn't mean school leaders aren't preparing, not just to get students back in the classroom, but for the unknown.
“I think you've got plans A through M, but you can't get very deep on any of them," said Dr. Crawford.
Dr. Crawford says because the exact rules of engagement haven't been presented to them yet, there are no definite plans right now for Tyler ISD's roughly 18,000 students. But so far, the plan is to start school as scheduled in late August.
“You may wind up, Dana, seeing a blending of traditional school," said Dr. Crawford. "You may also see some type of hybrid where you may have traditional school, but you also have some because of medical reasons or conscientious decisions, and may actually stay at home and you have to provide some type of blended learning and distance learning, as well."
You've likely heard the talk from the TEA about intersessional calendars, starting school a month earlier with longer breaks and ending school later.
“Because even if you were to go to intersessional calendars, start earlier with those scheduled breaks in there, moving those breaks around is something we will all have to do anyways if we do get another spike of this,” said Dr. Crawford. “We are really hoping that the decisions will be back to the local level down to this region of the state."
Then, there's social distancing to consider. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends desks be six feet apart, lunch in classrooms, staggered start times, cloth masks for staff and daily temperature screenings for everyone, just to list a few.
"Well, you know, you've got about four different plans in place depending on social distancing requirements," said Clugston.
Clugston is responsible for 4,600 students and about 700 employees. He's taking so much into consideration—from transportation to class size and how much hand sanitizer he would need to keep students safe and healthy.
“On top of that, we are going to have to have some other things in place," Clugston said. "When we get back to school, it is very likely that if we get an uptick in this region or an outbreak. It may shut you down for two to three weeks. I can see the state come in and say we are going to close down the East Texas region because of an uptick because of COVID-19. Well, then we'd go back to an e-learning situation and then you may come back to 25% capacity which means kids maybe come one day a week or e-learning the other four. Then, you make work up to 50% where you've got, kids coming twice a week and e-learning the other days and then you could back to everybody being here, but with increased social distancing procedures. So, you can run through all four of those scenarios in a given year."
Luckily, they've got the summer to work out some of those details.
But it's not just the larger, public schools grappling with how to best reach their students next year to reconnect and evaluate where they're at after such a long break from being in the classroom.
“So, Plan A is to have the same calendar that we had planned on in January, but to really work on greater fluency in technology for our older grades, so if we do have to switch to something like we experienced the last three months that the learning curve will be less steep," said Cumming. "We also have a Plan B and a Plan C, but in all of those things we are going to be paying attention to the health of the students and just taking it a day at a time."
Cumming is looking at the possibility of "cohorts," a new buzzword in education right now.
“If we are asked to physically distance more than we are able to in the classroom sizes we have, then what we will do is split those classes into two cohorts and those cohorts will be with each other all day," Cumming said. "Both sets of children will experience teacher instruction, while the other cohort might be working on the work that was just given to them by the teacher. So, we will just swap things out. That will make for a longer school day, that's kind of our Plan B. If we have to physically distance further, that means teachers are going to have to teach everything twice and we will need to have a longer school day for 4 days and then run a lab on the 5th day for the students, parents can opt-in if students need additional help and tutoring.”
There are so many scenarios for the fall, but there's one thing they know for sure.
“We're all learning in this and trying to figure out how to do it better and meet the needs of our kids,” Clugston said.
“Dana, I think we can all forgive ourselves for how we've responded in three months, but if this ever happens to us again, we've got to be better," said Dr. Crawford. "There's no doubt about that. That's why you look at the learning management system upgrade, along with the one to one devices to 18,000 TISD students as a way to come out on the back end of this better than we went into it."
At the end of the day, or in this case the end of the pandemic, it's about our precious children looking to us every day to help them grow into well-rounded, resilient, successful adults.
CBS19 will be tackling a different lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and how it affects our younger generation every Thursday night at 10 p.m.
If you have a question or concern, email us at education@cbs19.tv.