ACPS plans to go fully online for fall 2020

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ACPS plans to go fully online for fall 2020
A student participates in distance learning. (File Photo)
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By Cody Mello-Klein | cmelloklein@alextimes.com

Alexandria City Public Schools students will be attending classes entirely online for the start of the fall 2020 school year, ACPS announced on July 31.

Similar to neighboring school districts, ACPS’ Virtual Plus+ program will involve daily live instruction streamed via Zoom, virtual one-on-one and group tutoring sessions and some asynchronous learning opportunities. ACPS will continue its meal distribution program during the fall.

“The purpose is to really get away from the flexibility we had in the spring and to have a little more structure in the fall,” Superintendent Dr. Gregory Hutchings, Ed.D. said. “… There’s a lot more accountability this fall, which affords a much more robust learning experience for our students as well as for our staff members.”

ACPS teachers and staff have been largely supportive of the proposed plan, even as they acknowledged a desire to get back in the classroom.

“For the safety and sake of our community and our teachers and our students and our families, I was relieved,” Christina Bohringer, a fourth grade teacher at Samuel Tucker Elementary School, said. “I would’ve gone in hybrid, but I’m relieved to start off virtual and enhance our plan.”

Gabriel Elias, an English language and history teacher in T.C. Williams High School’s International Academy, has a wife who works in another school district and two elementary school-age students. Opening in person would have presented “a real nightmare scenario” for him and his family, Elias said.

“Professionally, I don’t feel that I’d be able to do my best in a situation where I was worried about exposures for my own kids,” Elias said.

Unlike in the spring, teachers will take attendance, and students will receive grades and new learning materials in the fall. Several teachers said that the rushed transition to virtual learning in the spring and the summer learning experience has prepared them for the fall semester.

“The nice part of that summer program, and moving into the fall … is I built relationships with those kids over the summer,” Stacey Swickert, a fifth grade teacher at Samuel Tucker, said. “… That allows me to hit the ground with content in a much faster way because they know me, I know them, they know my expectations.”

“It will be a very different experience than the emergency, being thrown off the side of the boat into the water [way it] was back in the spring,” John Humphrey, an English language and government teacher in the International Academy, said. “We’ve now been taught how to swim, and we’re getting pretty good at it, and we’ll get even better.”

Despite their hope for the upcoming semester, several teachers and ACPS staff members admitted there are still challenges involved in an entirely virtual learning environment.

For Humphrey’s students, many of whom live in multi-generational households in two or three-bedroom apartments, it can be difficult to find a place to study and take part in Zoom calls privately.

“I had kids in the spring who did Zoom in their closets, sitting on the floor in their closets because that’s the only room they could close the door off from other people,” Humphrey said. “Those are going to be challenges. How do you help a student make a space where they’ve got the ability to do that work?”

Social and emotional support for students is one of the core pillars of ACPS’ reopening plan, Hutchings said. Details about what those supports will look like in practice will be revealed in the coming weeks.

ACPS will begin with entirely virtual learning “through the first quarter,” Hutchings said, with plans to reassess when to transition to a hybrid virtual/in-person learning environment every nine weeks.

“It’s just a matter of: When is the appropriate time, or when is the most feasible time, to begin to implement the hybrid approach?” Hutchings said.

Some ACPS parents have been supportive of the plan. Hannah Williams, whose daughter is a rising junior at T.C. Williams, said that while the virtual learning offered in the spring could have been implemented better, she believes ACPS is prepared for the fall.

“I don’t really see how they could go back in person right now, and I think it’s smart of them to reassess every nine weeks,” Williams said. “… I’m glad they’re taking it one step at a time.”

“I have a lot of good friends that want to get back to work and are pushing … to at least have that hybrid,” Councilor Amy Jackson, an educator and ACPS parent herself, said. “But the problem is that this pandemic, of course, no one knows what’s going to happen.”

However, not every family has been supportive of the prospect of an entirely online start to the school year. Sixty percent of ACPS families said they would prefer a hybrid in-person/online plan in a survey sent out by ACPS.

Virtual learning has been challenging for many parents, as they’ve suddenly found themselves much more engaged in their children’s education.

“I have been pushed to limits here, being an educator myself, with my children,” Jackson said. “… The learning curve is huge.”

Now that Virginia has entered phase three of its reopening plan and more parents have been able to return to work, child care has also become a greater concern than it was in the spring.

As part of its reopening plan, ACPS also announced it will work with the city’s child care facilities and ACPS’ community partners to provide child care options for parents who need them. More details regarding child care will be made available whenHutchingspresentsthe reopening plan to the school board for approval on Friday, Hutchings said.

“They might be in a particular child care facility or they may be housed in one of our school buildings, but we want to make sure that they are able to engage in the live instruction that is occurring,” Hutchings said.

ACPS is also working on financial options, such as subsidies or grants, for families that aren’t able to afford to participate in those childcare opportunities, Hutchings said.

In order for every ACPS student to have access to Canvas, ACPS’ learning management system of choice, and Zoom, which the district has been using since the spring, students will receive age-appropriate technology.

Pre-K through first grade students will be given tablets, while the school system’s one-to-one policy for Chromebooks will expand to include all students in second through 12th grade, according to Hutchings.

“To make this all possible we are going to have to provide professional learning for our staff,” Hutchings said. “We always have our pre-service week where we do professional learning before school starts. That will continue this year. It’s just going to be more focused on virtual learning and how do you engage students virtually.”

Normally, teachers have two days before the school year starts to get their classrooms ready. In some cases, those two days are now being used for additional division-wide professional development opportunities. Teachers will be able to choose what areas of professional development they need, what tools they need more assistance with, and get help in those areas, according to PreeAnn Johnson, principal at James K. Polk Elementary School.

The program is the result of research, community engagement and work from ACPS’ Cross-Functional Planning Team, which also considered a hybrid virtual/in-person approach instruction for the upcoming school year.

ACPS leaders ultimately decided to go 100% online because of the numerous challenges involved with opening the school district for in-person learning. Hutchings cited concerns about transportation, physical distancing, health screening, funding and staffing.

ACPS’ announcement comes more than a week after Arlington Public Schools announced it would be holding classes entirely online and pushing its school start date from Aug. 31 to Sept. 8. ACPS is still set to start its school year, as scheduled, on Sept. 8.

The fall semester is going to be a new educational experience for everyone involved in ACPS. Some parents remain skeptical about an entirely online education, but the school divi- sion’s teachers feel confident that they’ve put in the time and effort to maintain their connection with students, while staying safe.

“Thishasbroughtoutthe best in them,” Johnson said of her teachers. “This pandemic has given them a sense of urgency to meet kids, to find kids, to get kids and to make it so they all learn.”

The school board will hold virtual public hearings on the reopening plan on Thursday and Friday ahead of its vote on Friday. ACPS will then send the final plan to the Virginia Department of Education on Aug. 14.

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