Palm Beach County School District Approves Plan to Start A Virtual School Year
This morning, the School Board of Palm Beach County announced that the Superintendent’s reopening plan for the 2020-2021 school year is approved.
After 10.5 hours of deliberation from parents and school board members, the School District will start off the year with distance learning.
The district has taken the spread of the virus into account as the average number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased significantly. According to their agenda, when the school district initially closed in mid-March, there were less than 70 new cases per day.
As of now, the daily average number of cases has exceeded 400.
Although Governor Ron DeSantis made the decision to move other counties into Phase 2 of reopening, Palm Beach County continues to remain in Phase 1.
Due to the spike in COVID-19 cases keeping the county in Phase 1 and recommendations from the Health Advisory Committee, the district advised students to learn virtually from home.
Before Deputy Superintendent Keith Oswald formally proposed the reopening plan, the school board attentively listened to several hours of employees, community, as well as parents public comments.
A full-time working mother, Gloria Tucker says that she believes “The children need to be face to face with their teachers and one on one with their peers.”
As a taxpayer and resident who has witnessed the impact social distancing and COVID-19 have had on her 11-year-old daughter, Tucker worries about how beneficial distance learning will be for students.
There are concerns about starting the virtual school year with many students still needing accessibility to digital technology and Wifi.
Chairman of the Palm Beach County Hispanic Education Coalition, Dr. Joaquin Garcia says that many students were not able to respond to school board surveys sent out virtually due to the fact that they do not have access to an internet connection. But he does not think that reopening schools is the wisest decision with the virus rapidly spreading in Florida.
“The families are afraid because they have been disproportionally affected…this virus is the one who governs this situation, it’s not us its the virus,” said Garcia.
Under this distance learning plan, teachers will be expected to hold virtual “office hours” for individual students and post an agenda at the beginning of the day.
Students at all grade levels can expect to be on a schedule that mimics the bell schedule at each student’s home school. According to the agenda, an outline of guidelines for students also explains that students will have a minimum of 24 hours to complete any assignments.
At the beginning of each class period, teachers will take attendance. Any students that do not log in will be marked “tardy” or “absent.”
Students will be graded using the current Student Progression Plan that can be found on their website.
The previous start date of August 10 will be pushed back. The official start dates for students and staff will be determined by the school board on July 22.
