Carter Jackson, an incoming seventh-grader at Buford Middle School, is ready to see his friends and start classes, even if they’ll be online, and he is especially looking forward to PE class.
“If we do come back, it will be like my recess,” he said, unsure of plans for virtual PE at Buford this school year.
Jackson’s mom, Melissa Carter, said the family is as prepared as possible for virtual learning.
“I’m just glad that they are back in some form of classroom or learning atmosphere,” she said outside Buford earlier this week.
After months of discussion, planning and uncertainty about this school year, students in the Charlottesville and Albemarle school divisions will head back to class Tuesday. The fall’s virtual learning will be the first time the thousands of students have received formal instruction since schools were closed March 13 as the COVID-19 pandemic spread in Virginia and across the country.
Virtual learning will be more structured and intentional than the spring, school officials pledged over the summer. However, some parents are worried about assisting with online classes and their children’s social-emotional well-being and how they’ll manage their work schedules.
Kate Caldwell, who has two children in the county school system and is a single mom, is still working on a childcare plan for the school year in addition to working through the virtual learning schedule, which she worries includes too much screen time. Her older child, who attends Albemarle High School, is the emergency child-care back-up for her second-grader at Greer Elementary.
“I can’t leave them at home alone and expect my oldest one to do her work and get her little sister through her schooling; that’s just too much,” she said Friday. “I have to be able to go back to work so that I can pay bills. I can’t stay at home with her.
She could take her to work, but there isn’t a consistent internet connection.
In the weeks leading up to the first day of school, schools have handed out supplies and hosted a variety of activities from virtual open houses and school tours to in-person meet and greets to help families get to know their teachers and learn the online systems where classes will be held.
“The meet and greets and chromebook and supplies distribution are important because it allows for a child to start to have that connection,” Buford principal Jesse Turner said. “It’s also refreshing to go and see somebody. This helps us make connections and re-energizes us.”
Carter and her son stopped by Buford on Wednesday to pick up a Chromebook and other learning resources and review his schedule with school staff.
She’ll be working from home, so she can help Carter if needed. She’s unsure of how exactly Tuesday and online classes will go.
“That he’s going to stay on track,” is a big concern this school year, she said. “ … It’s just the whole virtual learning.”
Turner, who is starting his second school year at Buford, said the emphasis during the first week of classes will be building relationships with students rather than diving straight into curriculum as they work to get students back into the routine of a regular school day.
“True learning doesn’t occur without relationships,” he said. “… You don’t want the first day of school where they start to learn about slope.”
All students and school staff at Buford will start their day with a class known as Strive, which serves as an advisory block for students. The goal of Strive is for students to have at least one adult that they’ve connected with.
During the first week, Turner said he’ll be watching for technology connectivity issues and that every student logs into Canvas, the learning management system where classes will be held for all of the city schools.
“I’m most excited about being able to get children back into a school setting even though it’s not face to face,” he said. “I do believe that school is a great place for children — a place where they can work on their dreams. When children don’t have an opportunity to go to school, I feel like they are being robbed.”
The respective School Boards for the two school systems decided to start the school year virtually amid questions about how to adhere to state and federal COVID-19 precautions and how they’ll to protect students and staff from the coronavirus. About 5% of Albemarle students are expected to go to the physical school buildings Tuesday because they either don’t have good enough internet access, are English Language Learners or need special education.
Those in buildings will be required to wear masks or an acceptable face covering and families are encouraged to conduct a daily at-home health screening. Albemarle County is requiring employees who work in the buildings to perform a self-assessment for COVID-19 symptoms before reporting to work and again upon building entry.
To support the online classes, both school divisions have worked to hand out Chromebooks and WiFi hotspots. They’re also partnering with Comcast to pay for families’ internet at home if they qualify through the company’s Internet Essentials program.
Charlottesville City Schools announced the Comcast partnership last week at a School Board meeting, and families should contact their school to take advantage of it. Delivery of the internet routers will take a week or so, officials said.
All students will have access to school meals, which will be free to anyone 18 years old or younger, a change announced last week after the federal government extended the a school-meal program through Dec. 31. Meals in Charlottesville can be picked up along bus routes and at select locations around the community, as has been the case since March. More information about those programs is available at charlottesvilleschools.org/food.
Albemarle had not updated its website as of Saturday afternoon, but division spokesman Phil Giaramita said Friday that meals will be free.
‘Not at all excited’
When schools shut down in March, Sarah Wilson saw her two elementary students change. Her son, an introvert, became more anxious and now sleeps with a bottle of hand sanitizer by his bed. Her daughter, a social butterfly, became short-tempered and video calls with her friends were the only thing she looked forward to.
As they get ready to go back to Hollymead Elementary, she’s worried not as much about the academics, but about their mental health and looking for more social interactions, which she said is a privileged position.
“They are starving for adult interaction,” she said. “They responded well to teachers online that they just met.”
As for virtual learning, she said the spring was “absolute torture” for her son, who will be starting fourth grade. In fact, for an assignment, he wrote a poem about how horrible the online learning experience was, she said.
“It was like you were trying to do complicated Photoshop designs in MS Paint,” she said of SeeSaw. “It just wasn’t working.”
Wilson said her son is anxious about the classes because of his experience in the spring.
“So he is not at all excited,” she said, adding that her daughter who is starting second grade is more eager.
The program for online classes — SeeSaw — has improved over the summer as the company responded to teacher feedback in addition to the other changes the division made to virtual learning.
‘Real test will be Tuesday morning’
On Tuesday at Walker Upper Elementary, fifth graders picked up their schedules and met their teachers who were at tables scattered throughout the outdoor campus of the school. One teacher dressed up as a Wolverine, the school’s mascot.
“The camaraderie among staff has been great,” principal Adam Hastings said. “They are getting on board and building home-school relationships.”
At Walker, the school staff, including Hastings, will serve a dual role as family coaches. Hastings said they each have up to 10 students on their caseload and will be checking in regularly with families and help with any issues that arise.
“I see the coaches as solution expedients,” he said.
Like Turner, Hastings said he’ll be looking to make sure that all the students at Walker are logging on to Canvas.
Charlottesville board members and division leaders expressed cautious optimism about the coming school year during Thursday’s board meeting but asked for patience and grace from families.
“Tuesday will be our first time doing wholesale online learning,” city schools Superintendent Rosa Atkins said. “The first for our teachers, our families, our principles. Although much of what we are doing is going well, the real test will be Tuesday morning.
“There will be bumps in the road Tuesday, no question about that. Just know we’re going to be out there, with our students, with our teachers and staff, helping to problem solve and to rectify any of those bumps that may come up.”
Board chairwoman Jennifer McKeever said while the first week won’t be the best it can be, it will be a learning experience.
“You’ll see us grow and learn from it as the weeks go on,” she said.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com