Room for growth
Most students stay home on Broward’s first day of return to in-person school
“I’m trying to keep my distance and trying to stay in front of my computer so the kids at home can see me, but eight of my [online] kids were not able to log on today, so I was trying to help them, and it was a little overwhelming.”
Christy Pardillo, a kindergarten teacher at Plantation Park Elementary
There was lots of room for social distancing at Broward County’s public schools on Friday, the first day of a gradual return to school buildings after seven months of closure due to COVID-19.
About one-fourth of students showed upfor in-person classes, slightlymore than the 20% expected by the school district. The district reported 12,500 students arrived in classrooms out of about 51,000 in special education and pre-kindergarten to second grade classes.
Theother75% of eligible students chose to continue learning from home, as they have done since Aug. 19, the beginning of the new school year. Some parents keeping their kids home fear their children could contract coronavirus in a classroom, while others are content with online learning or disapprove of restrictive COVID-related distancing rules.
On Tuesday, students in grades 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9 can return to their campuses, and on Thursday, students in grades 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12 can go back. There are about 210,000 students in the Broward school district.
Students who came back had to get used to an assortment of new protocols, including not touching each other and learning most of the day on their laptop computers. Teachers had to juggle, with some children in the classroom and others learning remotely, both groups using Microsoft Teams.
The first daywasn’t easy, said Christy Pardillo, a kindergarten teacher at Plantation Park Elementary. She had just been told the day before that she had to switch from first grade to kindergarten due to low enrollment numbers.
Eleven of her 21 students showed up on the first day, a larger number than most of the school’s classrooms had. She had to not only learn their names but also get quickly schooled in their levels of computer know-how.
“I’m trying to keep my distance and trying to stay in front of my computer so the kids at home can see me, but eight ofmy [online] kidswere not able to log on today, so I was trying to help them, anditwas a little overwhelming,” Pardillo said. “I had to tell them to just close up the computer and listen to me, even if they couldn’t see me.”
Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco said many teachers on Friday had trouble managing their online and inperson students simultaneously.
“That’s the only thing I heard that was stressful,” she said. “There were kids forgetting to bring their chargers and their laptops were dying.”
Only 70 students were present at Plantation Park out of 506 enrolled. More are expected on Tuesday when grades 3, 4 and 5 are allowed to return.
The school redesigned its cafeteria with desks spaced six feet apart instead of long tables so students can maintain a safe distance from each other. At lunch on Friday, kindergartners filed in first, were shown how to use hand sanitizer before continuing to the lunch line and then got directions on which desk to sit in.
“Kids are so resilient,” assistant principal Suzan DeMeo said. “They don’t knowany different.”
At Plantation High School, which has a special education program for students with disabilities such as autism, eight students came to school on Friday out of 39 in the program.
“Today they have the whole school to themselves,” Principal Parinaz Bristol said. Only 200 Plantation High 9th to 12th graders are expected next week out of 1,934 enrolled.
The low number is “emotional for me. The worst part is knowing I’m not going to meet allmy 9th graders,” Bristol said. “You develop relationships, and by the time they’re seniors, you’re crying because you’re going to miss them.”
School district officials say parents can switch their child from in-person to at-home learning at any time. But they’re asking parents whose children are learning fromhometo keep them there until the spring semester.
Still, kids who showed up on Friday for in-person classes without telling the school district they were returning were allowed into classrooms, Superintendent Robert Runcie said.
Broward’s reopening dates have gone through numerous changes in the past fewweeks.
The Friday opening was five days earlier than School Boardmembershad planned. Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran stepped in and ordered Broward schools to reopen this week. The district is the last in the state to reopen after pandemic closures.
Runcie said hehopedthe few children who showed up on Fridaywere relishing their first day of nearempty classrooms.
“They’re getting lots of attention, because there’s not that many of them,” he said.