Fewer students to be on campus
Deadline for picking an option for in-person lessons has passed
Public school campuses in Central Florida will be emptier than usual next month, with fewer than 50% of students expected for in-person lessons in most school districts, figures show.
In Orange County, the region’s largest school district, about 29% of students have signed up for face-to-face lessons for the first semester of the 2020-21 school year, the district said.
But the parents of more than 67,000 students, representing about 30% of district’s enrollment, still have not told schools their preference. Orange public schools start on Aug. 10 with virtual learning for everyone. Campuses are to open Aug. 21.
In the rest of the region, the percentage of students planning to be on campus is: 42% in Lake County, 44% in Seminole County, 46% in Osceola County and 51% in Volusia County. The deadline for picking an option has passed in all the counties, but schools are still calling parents who did not choose, so all the numbers could shift before classes begin in a few weeks.
With Florida a coronavirus hot spot, but state officials urging a return to “brick and mortar schools,” local districts have given parents options to have their children on campus for a traditional education — though with face coverings required and social dis
tancing rules in place — or select an online program that allows youngsters to study from home.
“There’s no way to make a decision that’s a perfect answer,” said John Puchein, an AP human geography teacher at Olympia High School in Orange and the father of a soon-to-be second grader.
His 7-year-old daughter struggled with at-home lessons in the spring, and Puchein and his wife struggled to help her while they both also worked full time from their house. “It was a mess,” he said.
The couple has decided he’ll teach in person this year, convinced that is best for his students, and their daughter will be back at school, too, because that structure, and a live teacher, are better for her than working on a computer all day.
“It was a horrible decision to make and a scary one,” he said. “It was just what we thought was best.”
Florida’s public schools shut down in mid-March to stop the spread of the coronavirus, sending 2.9 million school children to study at home. The debate about how and when to reopen schools has been roiling Florida for weeks, with many teachers arguing that opening campuses for inperson lessons would jeopardize their health but others saying many families need schools to be in session.
“No matter what your choice is, it comes with benefits, and it comes with absolute cons,” said Jessica Popov, an Orange mother whose 6-year-old is about to start first grade.
Popov, a mental health counselor who worked previously as a middle school guidance counselor, started a Facebook group in early July to help herself and about two dozen other
mothers figure out what to do. Within weeks, the group had ballooned to more than 6,000 members who have posted questions, shared worries and suggested “learning pods,” a way to put together small groups of children doing online learning, with a parent or even a hired teacher to help with lessons and activities.
She was “floored” by the number of parents who joined the group but also knew no one had faced such a decision before and that it was “all consuming” trying to decide what was best.
Her family does not feel safe having their son return to his public school, so Popov will be homeschooling him and limiting her own work to make that possible. They likely will join up with a few other families who are following similar safety precautions to provide some activities and socialization.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran have demanded public schools open in August for in-person classes for parents who want that option. They believe face-to-face instruction is best for most kids, think campuses can operate safely, and know many working parents, particularly those with limited economic means, need schools to open so they can report to their jobs.
More than 60% of Florida’s public school students live in low-income families, DeSantis said at a press event at a Clearwater school on Wednesday, and “what income bracket they’re in” likely limits their ability to take part in “learning pods” or other creative, stay-at-home solutions.
“Some of those low-income parents, they may not have the same luxuries in terms of the option of what they can if the school system is not offering in-person instruction,” he said.
Some children rely on schools for free meals, and the state’s 400,000 students with disabilities need services not well delivered online, he said.
“Many students will suffer academic and physical and mental health consequences, if they’re not able to get back into the classroom,” DeSantis said. “I don’t think the trends in any of those things will be positive.”
He said he would send his children to campus, if they were school age. His oldest is three. Corcoran, the father of six, said his children will be back at their public school in Pasco County. “I think they’re going to be great going back to school,” he said, speaking at the same event.
Corcoran said he expected from 60% to 90% of the state’s public school students would be studying on campus by the end of August.
But the Central Florida numbers suggest far less, and the three large school districts in South Florida, the epicenter of Florida’s virus outbreak, don’t plan in-person classes at all in August.
Though they varied by county, most local districts gave parents several options, including a way for students to take live, online classes from their school, following the on-campus schedule.
That option was the most popular in Orange, with about 63% of parents choosing the model called LaunchED@Home. About 8% percent choose the district’s virtual school, which provides online lessons done more on the student’s timetable. In Lake, 26% chose the live, online option and about 24% the virtual school. In Seminole, about 30% choose the live, online model, about 16% choose the virtual school and 10% choose a model that combines in person and virtual classes.