But with the pandemic now surging across a wide swath of the country, many of those plans have been shelved, and a different reality has emerged for the nation’s exhausted and stir-crazy families: Millions of American children will spend their fall once again learning in front of laptop screens.
To avoid a repeat, Polikoff said, “We should be pouring absolutely everything we can into making the online experience as good as possible.” President Donald Trump and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, have threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that do not teach in person but have provided no detailed recommendations on how to do so safely. Nor has Congress provided the billions that local officials say they need to cover the costs of retrofitting buildings for pandemic conditions.
“Every system, every school had to think through this, often in isolation,” said Jamila Newman of TNTP, formerly the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit that provides consulting services for districts across the country on staffing and student achievement. “Districts were spending the lion’s share of their time focused on an in-person plan or a hybrid plan that feels incredibly untenable in most places.
Newman said the continued uncertainty over when students might return to schools could hamper the ability of educators to provide quality remote learning. In some regions, she suggested, it might make sense to consider the possibility of spending the entire school year online. Students in kindergarten, first grade and second grade will begin the day with a 30-minute social-emotional check-in with teachers and peers, followed by 90 minutes of live instruction in reading, writing and math. For academics, they will be placed into small groups of 10 students.
The district plans to use staff members such as bus drivers to help make phone calls to track down students who do not turn in assignments or show up for online classes. In Odessa, Texas, the Ector County school district, which plans to open this month under a hybrid model that combines remote and in-person schooling, has come up with a plan to provide internet access to its rural population, some of whom live in areas not reached by broadband providers.
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