DeSantis reiterates push for schools to open even with later start date
Gov. Ron DeSantis urged school districts to offer in-person learning, even as South Florida districts plan to start the year virtually.
Data shows kids are the least impacted by COVID-19 but are bearing the greatest burden by not being able to attend school, DeSantis said in an address Wednesday afternoon.
“COVID should not deprive our kids from the tools they need for success,” he said. “Fear doesn’t help stop the virus.”
He said no parent should be forced to send a child to a physical campus but all should have the option if they feel it’s best. He said districts could delay the start of school, as Palm Beach County announced this week, moving the first day from Aug. 10 to Aug. 31 under a plan expected to approved Wednesday night. Broward plans to keep its start date on Aug. 19.
Broward School Board member Rosalind Osgood said she knows DeSantis and others are worry that virtual education is a poor replacement for face-to-face instruction and that students will fall behind, and she agrees. But she still thinks virtual education is best, while the county continues to see large number of COVID-19 cases.
“If I have students that are behind and they are alive, I’m able to catch them up,” she said. “If I bring them back into classroom settings and large gatherings and they catch the coronavirus and they end up deceased, I have no opportunity to catch them up.”
Some students with disabilities would return to campus three days a week, while students with limited English skills would return twice a week, under a proposal Broward School Board members discussed Wednesday. Others who may return would be those that need in-person laboratory experience, career and technical students and pre-K students.
Some students at the Broward district’s three technical schools already have been on campuses for select classes, officials said.
“It doesn’t mean there are other folks that couldn’t make a strong case toward having on-campus learning, but these are our most urgent needs, and we believe we can do it safely,” Superintendent Robert Runcie said.
Runcie said he wants to limit the number of students on campus to less than 50 to ensure the district has adequate personal protective equipment and can space out students.
Still, the idea of bringing back special needs students on campus while COVID-19 cases continue to surge concerns School Board member Patti Good.
“Some of these students are ones with the greatest underlying conditions, which makes them very vulnerable for the COVID virus,” Good said.
Jeff Kasky said he’s not comfortable sending his son, Holden, who has autism back to campus. Holden Kasky will be a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland.
‘Many autistic kids are immune-compromised, due to their condition or medications they are taking,” Kasky said. “Sending them back to school is not as great an idea as it sounds.”
Many teachers are also worried about returning to class if students have underlying conditions, Good said. She asked if those teachers could receive extra pay for taking on this challenge, an idea Runcie said he was open to.
Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco said a survey found about 30% of teachers said they would be willing to return to actual classrooms. She asked the district to tap into those teachers before mandating ones to return if they have health concerns.
Teachers will be encouraged, but not required, to come to their school to teach virtually out of their own classrooms, said Valerie Wanza, chief of performance and accountability for the district.
It’s unclear what will happen if there’s an outbreak of COVID-19 on the campus. Even though schools have been largely empty, numerous ones have had cases where employees contacted the virus, requiring them temporarily shut down for sanitization.
In hopes of addressing complaints that distance in learning this fall included little actual instruction, the district is requiring teachers to interact with students for five hours, Wanza said. This would include live instruction, as well as individual and group activities, she said.
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