Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Palm Beach County schools’ planned start pushed back to Aug. 31
Palm Beach County students will likely have to wait three more weeks for the start of their virtual classes. The proposed new opening date is Aug. 31.
The School Board will vote on Wednesday whether to select that Monday instead of Aug. 10, the previously planned start date. The board is planning to train teachers in the coming weeks in how best to teach classes online in new formats that they say will provide an improved learning experience over the spring semester. Schools closed abruptly in March at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and many teachers struggled to transition students to online learning.
The later start also allows time for the delivery of 82,000 laptop computers to be used at home by needy students. Those deliveries are expected to begin Aug. 17, School Board member Karen Brill said.
The new start date means a later end date. The proposed last day for students would be June 18.
“I’m fine with the delayed start date,” said Delray Beach parent Betsy Silverfine, whose children will be in 6th grade and 9th grade. “The teachers need to be totally ready so the students are up to speed.”
The calendar still provides a week off for Thanksgiving, two weeks off for winter break and
another week vacation for spring break in March.
Jonathan Burns, the father of a second-grader and a fourth-grader in Delray Beach, said he hopes the Aug. 31 start allows more inclass time in June if the pandemic eases.
“I’d rather start a little later so we can get back three weeks at the end of the year,” he said.
The delay of in-person school has affected not only students and teachers but some school workers who had daily contact with kids: nurses. The Palm Beach County Health Care District on Friday announced the furlough of 170 school nurses who had been placed on school campuses.
“The Health Care District remains committed to the School Health program and once the School District releases its plan to return to school, the Health Care District will respond accordingly, including plans to staff the same number of public schools, nearly 170, with a full-time registered nurse,” the health district said in a statement.
How to start school as coronavirus continues to surge has become an agonizing problem for school districts in South Florida and across the country. Many parents wanted the option of in-person classes, but school boards in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade have decided to start the year online.
Palm Beach County is planning a gradual reintroduction of students to school buildings when officials deem it safe to return. Prekindergarten, kindergarten, first grade, sixth grade and ninth grade students would come back to classes first, followed two weeks later by students in second, third, seventh and 10th grades. The remaining grades would return two weeks after that.
A July 6 state order requiring schools to offer inperson classes five days a week unless they have an exemption from local health authorities embittered many teachers, even though South Florida districts are going ahead with online-only learning plans. Florida’s teachers sued the state on Monday, saying the state order requiring the reopening of school buildings next month risks the health of Florida’s families and school employees.
The lawsuit is believed to be the first of its kind in the country, pitting teachers who believe reopening schools is perilous against government officials and some parents who say children need to resume their educations five days a week in brick-and-mortar classrooms.