Portsmouth parents have four choices for school reopening in the fall
Portsmouth is asking parents and staff to weigh in on four possible school reopening options: 100% virtual, 100% in-person or two scenarios that are hybrid schedules.
The options are similar to those being considered by school districts in the area and around the country as they weigh how to start the fall after a spring that was disrupted by the statewide order closing schools for the coronavirus.
Portsmouth is the last Hampton Roads district to share its plans and will be one of the last to make a final decision on the fall, with the School Board not expected to take a vote until August 8.
There are no big surprises in the different scenarios being considered, said Donna Clifton, the president of Portsmouth’s Council of PTAs, but that doesn’t make the decision any easier. Clifton said she’s still weighing the options for her son, a rising ninth-grader at Churchland High School. He’s desperate to go back but she’s not quite sure yet.
“I’m just trying to swallow it all in,” Clifton said.
Most of the parents she’s talked with haven’t made up their minds yet either but are leaning towards the virtual option because of the area’s rising cases and all the unknowns. How will students social distance on buses? During lunch? In the hallways?
“What I’m seeing are people saying, ‘how, how, how?‘,” Clifton said. ‘How are we going to do this?”
The options come as the percent of positive tests in the city — a key goal epidemiologists have identified as a sign of whether it’s safe to reopen schools — is on the rise and as of this week, the highest of any locality in the region. As of Tuesday, 16.5% of tests in the city were positive, more than triple the World Health Organization’s recommended rate of 5% positivity.
The 100% in-person option is contingent on the region staying in Phase III. If the state or the region falls back into Phase II, as Gov. Ralph Northam has suggested could happen if Hampton Roads rising trends continue, the district won’t be allowed to bring all students back.
Masks would be required in that option because social distancing wouldn’t be possible.
Both hybrid options call for in-person instruction two days a week. Under one, only elementary and middle school students would be brought back. Under the other, all students would be brought back. Classes would be split into groups of two, with some students attending Monday and Tuesday and some attending Thursday and Friday.
The days when students aren’t in school under the hybrid options would be virtual days and the district will provide devices for all students. Currently, middle and high school students have laptops but the district plans to buy additional devices so elementary students can have devices, too.
Under the 100% virtual or hybrid options, distance learning will look different than it did in the spring. Distance learning during the initial shutdown was self-paced, but in the fall there will be assigned times for students to get online for lessons and attendance will be taken. Students’ work will be graded.
Students with disabilities and students learning English — two groups that have had the hardest time with distance learning — will be brought back for in-person learning in some capacity under any of the four options. How much in-person instruction those students will get hasn’t been decided yet, district spokeswoman Lauren Nolasco said.
In addition to asking parents to identify a reopening scenario preference, the district is also asking parents what their primary concern is come fall: health and safety, childcare, their child’s social and emotional needs and continuity of instruction. The survey also asks whether parents plan to send their children back for in-person instruction in any capacity and if they will ride the bus.
The staff survey asks teachers their preference when it comes to reopening schools and also asks them to rate how comfortable they feel physically returning and whether they have childcare or health care concerns of their own that would make a return difficult or impossible.
Parents and staff have until August 3 to respond to the surveys.
Clifton said she’s heard from parents who wish the district would make a decision before August so they can make plans but she’s asked them to be patient with administrators.
“You’re expecting Rome, which wasn’t built in a day,” she said. “You’re expecting everything to be perfect and we’re not in a perfect world.”
Sara Gregory, 757-469-7484, sara.gregorgy@pilotonline.com
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