Parents irked by schools’ change
Orange County district moves up start date to Aug. 10
The Orange County school district changed its calendar late Monday so that school starts in just two weeks — ensuring teachers get paid on time but setting off a firestorm from angry parents.
“They took a vote on it. Aug. 21. Now all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we’re going back to the 10th?” said Jaime GreenspanCooke, who has two children in elementary school. “No other county seems to have the back and forth that our county is having.”
Greenspan-Cooke said her family made plans to visit her parents in South Florida just ahead of what they thought would be the new school year. Now time with grandparents could be time spent doing online lessons.
“I think the schools are doing a phenomenal job,” she added. “My frustration is at the county level.”
The district said Monday that the 2020-21 school year would start Aug. 10, with online classes only, and then campuses would open Aug. 21 for those who opt for face-to-face lessons. That was a shift from its July 17 announcement that the school year likely would start on Aug. 21, for both online and in-person classes, instead of Aug. 10, the date long on calendar as the start of the 2020-21 school year.
When shared on Facebook, the district’s announcement prompted more than 2,300 comments. Many were from parents
like Greenspan-Cooke who said the change left working parents in a lurch — children scheduled to be in camp or with babysitters would now need to be doing online classes instead — and disrupted vacation plans made after the district announced its later start.
“La ridicules mas grande que he leido todo el dia,” read one Facebook comment written Monday in Spanish. Translation: “It’s the most ridiculous thing I have read all day.”
District officials said on Tuesday that students who cannot start school on Aug. 10 will not be penalized or counted as absent. But the district’s communications office did not immediately explain what would be taught or expected of students during those nine school days.
“None of this is ideal, and none of this fits for everyone,” said Linda Kobert, a member of the Orange County School Board, which agreed to the tentative Aug. 21 start date at its meeting on July 17.
“It’s an effort to do the right thing for our teachers and our families,” she said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered schools closed in mid-March to stop the spread of the coronavirus. In July, his administration said they needed to open in August, with a five-day-aweek, on-campus option available to parents.
How to reopen, as cases and fatalities have surged in recent weeks, has prompted protests, debate and lawsuits. The Orange district’s
Monday announcement added to that controversy.
The reason for the date change is teacher pay.
An Aug. 21 start date would have pushed back when teachers returned to work, which meant they wouldn’t get their first paycheck until Sept. 2, instead of mid-August. Many teachers, and their union, were upset, saying that schedule created a financial hardship, particularly because the pandemic had made it harder for some to work second jobs this summer.
The Orange County Classroom Teachers Association filed a grievance last week, saying the calendar change should not have been implemented without union negotiations and was creating problems for teachers. The union also maintains it will not be safe to reopen schools for inperson classes next month.
Superintendent Barbara Jenkins, who has the authority to make changes without a board vote, then proposed the Aug. 10 start date, which would allow teachers to be paid as scheduled, Kobert said.
“It was an act of compassion to get these teachers paid,” she said.
But as the 100 or so emails she received, and the thousands of Facebook comments, made it clear, Monday’s news did not sit well with many families.
“I know it’s really a shock to parents,” she added.
“You cannot just keep changing dates like this,” wrote Jenny Gaus, whose two children will be in elementary school, on the district’s Facebook page. “Plans have been made. Child care has to be secured. We are working parents and cannot just change dates like this,” she added. “This is unbelievably unorganized.”
During the board’s July 17 meeting, Jenkins said repeatedly that plans for reopening schools were “fluid,” and the district’s message to parents Monday afternoon took the same tack.
“We have continued to look for solutions that will accommodate parent, student and teacher needs. It remains challenging, and as promised, plans continue to be fluid,” it read.
The district also said teachers and students, even those moving to face-toface instruction, would benefit from the nine days of online lessons as it would familiarize them with the technology that would be used should all campuses be shuttered again.
Orange schools have given parents a choice for how their children are educated in the coming semester. As of Monday, about 29 percent of students will be oncampus while the rest will be at home doing school online.
But on Facebook, many parents said there was only so much change they could take.
“So ‘fluidity’ means that parents have to be ready a the drop of a hat to change their lives around at any given moment?” wrote one.
“People have planned childcare, camps, last minute trips and all of that is out the window,” wrote another. “Poor management and communication.”