ATTEMPTING TO RETURN

Jessica Malosh | August 24TH, 2020 | FEATURES

During March of 2020, schools in Duval County were shut down due to rising COVID-19 cases. Since then, students, parents, and employees have been living in a state of constant flux as decisions by the Duval County School Board have been published, amended, and scrapped. With the beginning of the new school year, the members of the school board have been working hard to decide on the course of action to integrate students back into schools.

The final decision of the Duval County School Board directed students’ families to choose whether they want to go back to school partially or take classes solely online. Mr. Darryl Willie, the District Two Duval County School Board Member, said there were a multitude of factors that went into the decision to offer an in-school option.

First, for densely populated schools, the school board and the school administration had to figure out if there were ways to stagger classrooms and to create ways for students to move through the spaces of the schools without any cross contamination.

Second, looking into whether there was staff capacity to allow students into schools was a large part of the decision. 

“What was hardest in [the decision] was providing teachers’ options,” said Mr. Wille. “[We] couldn’t be as flexible with the teacher population as [we] could with parents and students.” 

Third, many students rely on brick and mortar schools because they are provided with resources that cannot be offered virtually. Also, many students respond better to face to face learning than they do to remote learning.

“You do have folks that need to be inside schools, for example, our special needs and ESE [exceptional student education] students. They need to be in an environment where they have those professionals working with them,” Mr. Willie said. “In addition to that, you have parents and families who are front line workers and employees during this pandemic.”

For the students who chose the hybrid option, many procedures and protocols have been put into place for their safety.

According to Mrs. Christen Quattrone, the Stanton College Preparatory School media center clerk, there are multiple hand sanitizer stations placed in high traffic areas around the school, students will get their temperature checked before entering the school and must wear a mask at all times.

In addition to these practices, the classrooms will have a modified layout and frequent cleaning of classrooms will occur. The desks will have to be at least 6 feet apart and will all have to face one direction. Physical barriers will be installed wherever it is difficult to maintain a distance of six feet, such as reception desks. Tape guidelines will be put on the floors to direct students to the different areas of the school, and to maintain a distance of six feet. Cleaning of the classrooms will happen daily, and a NANO bacteria guard will be sprayed on all surfaces and walls every 90 days.

“We’ve ordered millions of dollars of supplies when it comes to masks and hand sanitizer and all of those things that are going to be pushed out to schools,” said Mr. Willie. “We’re actually increasing teacher’s salaries this year based on some grants that are happening at the state level. We have some federal and state dollars that are coming with the CARES [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security] Act…and we are able to use a lot of money for [supplies]. We aren’t going to see a ton of cuts because we are not using up money from one area to pay for another.”

In addition, all after school activities are at a halt right now. The administration is still trying to figure out how clubs would work.

“At Stanton they’re stopped until further notice,” said Mrs. Quattrone. “We could have [them] after school, but then it wouldn’t be fair to those who chose to do virtual.”

Virtual learning also prevents students from participating in the more interactive parts of the curriculum. For Mrs. Juanita Farmer, a Stanton science teacher, redesigning how she teaches the course material has been a challenge.

“[For labs,] there are lab kits that you can send home with students. If we were to do something like that, we would probably get the stuff together at school and [tell students to] come pick up the box,” said Mrs. Farmer. “[We could also] do the lab with things that would be found at home.”

Mrs. Farmer has also been exploring different virtual labs for students to make up for the lack of interactive learning.

“[Virtual labs are] not hands on in [the sense] that you're actually touching and feeling moving things, but you will have to manipulate things on a higher level,” Mrs. Farmer said.

In addition, Mrs. Farmer also mentioned that she wants to shift towards more group projects. This way everybody will get to collaborate and may lessen the feelings of solitude among virtual learners.

This spirit of collaboration is also evident as the Duval County School Board works with the Florida Department of Health. 

“We essentially provide guidance and interpretation of CDC guidelines,” said Dr. Pauline Rolle, Director of the Florida Department of Health. “[We do] not dictate policy or procedure to the school system.”

In addition to the preventative measures that the schools are putting in place, screening for COVID-19 might be integrated into the schools as well. This will be when students report if they have been experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19.

As of right now, there are no testing procedures in place at school but Mr. Willie said that there are plans to make rapid testing available at schools as soon as possible. According to Dr. Rolle, if a student exhibits or describes symptoms related to COVID-19, they will be sent home. Then, to return to school, students would have to have a physician’s note saying that they are safe to go to school.

To determine who a COVID-19 positive student may have affected, the Department of Health would conduct a contact investigation. Using the data from the investigation, the school board would decide whether to close the school or not.

This will be the new norm it seems, until the School Board, using guidance from the Florida Department of Health and other health professionals, deems it safe for all students to fully go back to school.

“The superintendent is creating…a panel of healthcare professionals and they are going to meet with them probably once [or twice] a week especially in the very beginning just to monitor the situation.” Mr. Willie said. “After the first nine weeks we’ll do an assessment [to see if] we need to make any adjustments either to open up more or to close more.”

The 2020-2021 school year will be unlike any other academic year as students, teachers, staff, and administration navigate through the unprecedented situation and learn to live with uncertainty.