By: Robert S Weinroth
It’s been almost a year since COVID became an overriding concern in our community. Last year at this time few of us had ever heard of Wuhan China. The thought of a pandemic bringing our world to a screeching halt was the furthest thing from our minds.
Yet, here we are. We have weathered an economic shut down, we’ve self-isolated, kept our children home from school, abandoned activities where, before, large crowds would come together as spectators or participants and the way we do business has been dramatically impacted.
The good news is most of this bad dream is in our rearview mirror. With the vaccine deployed, our residents have the opportunity to feel a sense of wellbeing and protection.
For many who did catch the virus, the symptoms were mild and they’ve recuperated. However, we cannot forget how this has impacted our neighbors. Over 20,000 Floridians have succumbed to the virus or the complications it caused. Over 65,000 of our residents were hospitalized due to the virus and we pray for their complete recuperation.
While “hospitality” is no longer the primary driver of Florida’s economy, the pandemic has caused deep pain to businesses dependent on travel and leisure. Many restaurants have closed, hotels are operating at a fraction of their former rates of occupancy, and shoppers have migrated to online shopping, to the detriment of brick and mortar retailers.
It is clear, the pandemic has caused a dramatic change in the way we interact with each other, how we learn and how we do business. The changes that we made in our daily routines (proceeding in a socially responsible manner) are not likely to change anytime soon.
We have suddenly embraced a virtual world. Virtual meeting, virtual education and even virtual medicine are now the norm.
One of the long-term benefits of our pandemic response has been the investment made in our broadband networks. U.S. broadband networks weathered the COVID-19 surge in traffic better than most peer nations.
The pandemic has galvanized policymakers to ensure broadband can serve as an essential lifeline for everyone, including low-income and rural residents.
We have recognized the disparities resulting from a lack of dependable broadband access have dire consequences for our children as they grapple with the challenges of virtual learning and we understand the hurdles a business must overcome due to a lack of connectivity.
Palm Beach County allocated over $20 million of the CARES dollars it received from the federal government towards upgrading broadband throughout the county. In partnership with the School District (which distributed thousands of laptop computers to facilitate online access to their virtual classes), the impact on our children’s education over the past year has been lessoned.
Unfortunately, it is clear many students have not thrived as they have been asked to adapt to the new methods of delivering their lessons.
The difficulties of learning in a pandemic have taken a toll on students’ academic achievment in our public schools, with the worst setbacks coming in poor communities.
In the district’s middle and high schools, it has been reported that the number of students who are failing a class has doubled with the number of students receiving and “F” tripled.
While school administrators point to the challenges posed by distance learning for the precipitous drop in academic achievement, it clear the reasons are less important than attacking the issue, head-on.
Notwithstanding the fact that home distractions and hardware deficiencies have conspired to reduce student comprehension of their lessons and, with less than a third of middle and high school students attending classes in person and most teachers required to teach in person and online at the same time, it has been a perfect storm for an academic backsliding.
“We’ve had academic dips with kids in distance learning, definitely an increase from when we were all in brick and mortar (classrooms),” Deputy Superintendent Keith Oswald said. “Obviously there are numerous new challenges.”
As a result, over 25,000 students (including roughly 3,300 who have completely fallen off the radar) are being called back to in-person instruction for the new semester that begins on February 2nd as part of the Department of Education’s updated emergency order issued in November wherein it mandated any student not making “adequate academic progress” must return to in-person instruction.
Clearly there will be bumps in the road as we ease back to normalcy. Many practices (telemedicine, virtual meetings and even virtual instruction) will continue even after people are no longer preoccupied with the virus. But, reducing social distances and attending in-person events cannot happen too soon.