Keys schools to offer full-time, in-person learning for all students
Under an order from the state, the Monroe County School District will offer all students the option of returning to face-to-face instruction five days a week starting this month, a schools spokeswoman said. A start date was not anwrote. nounced.
In a letter Friday, Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said a state emergency order requires that school districts continue to open school buildings at least five days a week for students who choose in-person instruction. Corcoran said Monroe should do so by March 15. “Time is of the essence,” he Superintendent Theresa Axford asked for a March 29 start date.
After closing school buildings and starting remote learning in mid-March, Monroe schools fully reopened Sept. 14 to students in pre-K through grade 5 who wanted to return to the classroom. But students in grades 6 through 12 returned to school buildings on a parttime basis, attending virtual school on days they are not in the classroom in what the district calls an “A/B” schedule.
“Parents will still have the option of keeping their older students who are currently on an A/B schedule on that schedule if they wish to do so,” said schools spokeswoman Becky Herrin.
Unlike Monroe, public schools in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties don’t offer an alternating schedule. Students are either in school five days a week or learning remotely.
Monroe schools contest that they were not complying with the executive order because decisions were made in consultation with the local health department, Axford wrote in response to Corcoran. The executive order states that opening “bricks and mortar” schools to students five days a week is “subject to advice and orders of the Florida Department of Health, local departments of health, and subsequent executive orders,” Axford cited.
“As a result, MCSD maintains one of the lowest rates of COVID-19 transmission among the Florida school districts,” Axford wrote.
In an internal email sent at Saturday afternoon, Axford told teachers the change was not her idea and it could be the result of a group of parents complaining to Corcoran.