Most Broward students can return full time

Most Broward County parents should have the option to send their children back to a school campus five days aweek in October, Superintendent Robert Runcie said Tuesday.

Other students may get to attend only two or three days a week. It depends on how crowded a school is and how many students want to return.

The school district, once it reopens its campuses, would continue to offer remote learning aswell, Runcie said during a news conference Tuesday. All schools have been closed since mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but as indicators are starting to look more favorable in Broward County, Runcie said he hopes schools can open sometime next month.

As long as20% to30% of parents agree to keep their kids home, there should be space left at most campuses for other kids to attend full time and still spread out desks and do other measures needed to ensure everyone is socially distanced, he said.

In other districts that have opened, at least 30% of students stayed home. The number was actually about 70% in Orange County. A recent survey of Palm Beach County parents found about half of students plan to return when that district opens Sept. 22.

Broward school officials had previously said they expected to reopen campuses using a hybrid model, where only half the students would attend at any given timeandlearn the rest of the time at home.

That is still likely to happen at some of the most crowded of the district’s 233 schools, Runcie said.

“We have some small subset of schools — maybe 30, 40 or 50— where it’s not going to be possible to open five days a week for all students, given their enrollment and capacity,” Runcie said. “But to the extentwe can make it happen, we certainly want to offer the option of five days a week.”

Runcie didn’t identify the schools that might not be able to accommodate all students, but the district’s most crowded schools tend to be in the western communities.

These include Cypress Bay High and Falcon Cove Middle in Weston, Nova HighinDavie, Pioneer Middle in Cooper City, Atlantic Technical High in Coconut Creek andWestglades Middle in Parkland.

However, the district has traditionally defined crowding as howmuch permanent space there is without considering portables.

Some schools with lots of portablesmay actually have more room to keep students spread out than some less crowded campuses.

Principals have been working with staff during the past few months to evaluate their campuses and identify how many desks can fit into a room and what extra space can be used to house students, said Lisa Maxwell, executive director of the Broward Principals and Assistants Association.

“Of course everything is still in question untilwe see the actual numbers of what turnout will be,” Maxwell said.

The district plans to survey parents in the coming weeks to find out about their plans, Runcie said. A survey from the summer found a third of parents wanted their kids to return full time, a third wanted to keep them at home full time and a third preferred a hybrid model.

The district plans to hold a workshop Sept. 22 to discuss options for reopening. Palm Beach County agreed to open Sept. 22 now that the county has moved from Phase1to the less restrictive Phase 2. Broward remains in Phase 1, although Gov. RonDeSantis has suggested Broward could be ready for Phase 2 soon.

Miami-Dade, which is also in Phase 1, has set a tentative reopening for Oct. 5.