Broward County prepared to start school year online
Even with half of the number of cases as MiamiDade, Broward County Public Schools has already called it.
The second-largest school district in the state will start the school year Wednesday, Aug. 19, fully online.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done at a community level for us to safely return,” said Superintendent Robert Runcie, who said data showed how unlikely it was that infection rates would drop below 5% by the start of school. “Our teachers need to prepare and our parents need to plan. The sooner we can do that the better.”
Runcie said the school district spent the entire summer getting ready for this worst-case scenario. School officials took a hard look at what could’ve been done better after spending the spring quarter online.
He said the district implemented ideas received from parents, students and teachers.
Broward schools got off to a rocky start with online learning. Starting a week after Miami-Dade, students and teachers in Broward were notified of online platform outages by 10 a.m. on their first day online.
To avoid that same fate,
Runcie said officials were working to perfect Microsoft Teams and Zoom, two video chat platforms for students.
The district also worked with Microsoft to accelerate enhancements on these platforms.
This fall, Broward students will have more video chats with teachers, who will be required to teach for at least five hours a day. Online, one-on-one office hours are also available for students who need extra help.
Runcie said teachers needed more training to give consistent lessons with more face-to-face interaction. He said extensive training has been offered for teachers throughout July and August and will continue through the school year.
To provide maximum flexibility for families, especially with little ones who need more help at home, the school district is offering morning and evening sessions for students in elementary school. Direct, small group instruction will take place from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then the second group will go from 2:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Similar to a “homework hotline,” students in middle and high school can log on or call in from 3 to 9 p.m. to get extra help with coursework.
In another change, teachers will be allowed to teach remotely from their classrooms if they prefer.
The district is also creating “professional learning communities” in each school led by teachers for teachers to come together regularly and share ideas and best practices. He said the majority of Broward’s teachers were already using online learning while in the classroom, but some teachers struggled with the change to go fully online.
“It wasn’t perfect, but we’re in a different place now,” Runcie said.
He believes Broward is ahead of the curve, as online learning is the future of education.
“I believe the e-learning piece, although it will never fully replace live, face-to-face learning in the classroom, socialization,” he said, “I believe that is going to be here today as a component of our instructional educational portfolio and public education as we go forward.”