Some schools are already open. Take a look inside.

From the morning temperature checks to half-empty classrooms to the staggered dismissal, face-to-face learning looks a lot different these days in one South Florida school.

While most Palm Beach County schools will open their campuses Monday, Renaissance Charter School at Wellington got a head start, giving a preview of what parents might expect at schools opening in a pandemic — assuming everything goes as planned.

If Renaissance is any indication, students will have plenty of room to spread out. Parents of only 42% of the 556 students decided to go back to the school. The rest are learning virtually from the same teachers instructing kids in the classroom.

The day starts with a school official greeting parents in their cars. Parents use their cellphones to scan a code where they must enter their child’s name, any illness and whether they’ve traveled outside the country recently. The children’s foreheads are scanned for a temperature reading.

Although parent volunteers are normally a key part of the school’s success, they aren’t allowed on campus in most cases right now. If their student forgets their lunch or medicine, they must stay outside, waiting for someone to meet them.

Inside, the water fountains are taped off, but school staff will give water those who want it. Hand sanitizing stations are everywhere. A second clinic, or isolation room, is there for kids with symptoms. So far, no kids have needed it.

In Stephanie Leisegang’s sixth grade language arts class, seven students are physically in class, while another dozen or so are at home.

A multi-directional desktop camera, known as an Owl, follows the teacher around class. It allows the students watching at home to see her, even if she’s not by a computer.

The students in class all wear masks, which they must keep on the whole day.

The Wellington K-8 school is one of seven operated in Palm Beach County by Charter Schools USA. After starting the year virtually, they welcomed students for in-person learning on Sept. 9. They have not seen a case of COVID-19 since school opened.

The smooth reopening contrasts with the experience of some school districts elsewhere in Florida. In Orange County, for example, 30% of campuses have recorded cases of COVID-19 and 636 people have had to be quarantined, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Hundreds of students in neighboring Martin County also have quarantined.

Parents in Broward and Palm Beach counties fear a repeat as their districts get ready to open. Teachers in Palm Beach County say schools aren’t safe to open and they felt misled about whether they could teach from home. The Classroom Teachers Association has called for the removal of Superintendent Donald Fennoy.

Teachers unions in all three South Florida districts have called for a delay in reopening until procedures are in place to protect students, teachers, school employees and their families.

Teachers aren’t unionized at Renaissance, and they were required to come back.

“We hope that we can serve as an example of what to do in this new normal and offer advice to any district schools as they go through these processes,” said Colleen Reynolds, a spokeswoman for Charter Schools USA.

Sixth grader Benjamin Mori said he’s glad to be back in school, but he acknowledges it’s a little strange this year.

"We don’t get to do as many things, and we don’t get to see as many friends. So many had to stay home,” he said. “It’s fine for right now, but if it continues for the rest of the year, it would be weird, because we might lose the bonds we’ve formed.”

Yaneylis Camacho has two elementary students staying home for the virtual program. She and her husband both got COVID-19 during the summer. She doesn’t want her kids to get it too. The virtual program works for them.

“They enjoy school and then after school they talk to their friends on FaceTime and play games online. They miss their friends, but they know the virus is dangerous,” she said.

Parents who chose the virtual option will be allowed to return to the in-school program after nine weeks, which will be in mid-October. But Camacho said she doubts she’ll return her kids to school until there is a vaccine.

Parent Lesha Seale said she felt her two daughters, Abby and Laccy, needed to return to class after so long at home. Laccy is a fourth grader at Renaissance while Abby will start eighth grade Monday at Wellington Landings Middle, which is run by the school district.

“My kids are so broken because of this whole lockdown, They don’t go anywhere and we were never home before this,” instead doing staying busy with activities like dance and swimming, Seale said. “Now they play Fortnite all day. They needed to go back.”

Seale said she’s concerned about what the large, 1,300-student Wellington Landings will be like when her older daughter attends Monday. “I will send her with hand sanitizer and a set of three or four masks just in case she drops one."

But with fewer than 300 students on campus at Renaissance, the mom feels Laccy is safe. As for wearing a mask all day, “it does stink but she’s healthy and able to go back to school and see her friends, so it’s worth it," the mom said.

Students take their masks off only to eat in the lunch room, where they’re kept 6 feet apart.

“We have thousands of masks, so if a kid doesn’t bring one, we provide a disposable one for them,” Assistant Principal Rachel Colavecchio said.

School staff closely watched students on campus. Elementary students generally stay in the same classroom all day, with different teachers coming in to teach them different subjects. Middle school students change classes. They help the teacher clean and sanitize their desks before and after teach class.

The school still offers classes like art and P.E., but they look different. In P.E., kids do individual stretching and guided exercises, sitting on tape marks, placed to keep them socially distanced. Kids at home do the same activities at home with the in-person students. In a drama class, kids were singing songs, their voices muffled through their masks, along with kids singing along at home on a screen.

When the day ends, parents are parked in four different different car lanes, while students line up in four different groups in the hallways. Each group of students goes out at different times to avoid the mad free-for-fall that has been common in schools after the dismissal bell rings.

It’s been only a week, but so far, it seems to be working out, Principal Christopher Glinton said.

'It took a lot of planning, a lot of practice, but the exciting part is we have options for our parents and students," Glinton said. “We missed our kids. We do this because we love our kids.”

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