San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Remote learning might even go into 2022
Nearly one year into the pandemic, Eduardo Hernandez, superintendent of the Edgewood Independent School District, still doesn’t quite know what the next school year will look like for his students and staff.
Around Bexar County, he and other school leaders trying to plan for the fall are grappling with countless unknowns, from how much funding they will receive to the community spread of the coronavirus.
But given the alarming trajectory of new virus cases and the dragging pace of the vaccine rollout, one thing is almost certain: Schools will need to offer remote learning for the foreseeable future — maybe into 2022.
“Online learning is not going to stop,” Hernandez said. “Although by September, we will have a considerable amount of people in the city — and I think that will include teachers — vaccinated, I anticipate the school year will open up much like it is now.”
Since last summer, most schools around San Antonio have allowed families to choose the instructional model — in person, online or a hybrid option — that works best for them.
But in a pandemic, none of those learning models is perfect, and maintaining two or three of them simultaneously has been exhaust
ing and stressful for many teachers and parents.
“I anticipated for it to just be back to normal, but the way it’s looking, it’s just crazy,” said Melissa Lopez, 36, a mother of three elementary school students enrolled at Compass Rose Academy at Brooks AFB. “It’s very frustrating.”
She has put her children in both remote and in-person learning since the start of the pandemic, and keeping up with all the changes has been difficult, she said.
As superintendents look ahead to the 2021-22 academic year, they also are looking back at what has worked so far and what needs improvement, hoping the other pieces of the puzzle, like funding and widespread vaccine access, fall into place soon.
“What we’re all grappling with is not having answers to certain questions,” said Sean Maika, superintendent of North East ISD, the second largest district in Bexar County. “Nobody can really look into the future and know when this will end or what its result will be. That’s hard, all the unpredictability.”
If the vaccine still is not widely administered by the start of the fall semester, NEISD probably will continue to offer remote learning, “just for the peace of mind of our parents, so that depending on how they feel comfortable, they have a choice,” Maika said.
If vaccine access is widespread by next summer, school administrators are going to have to decide whether it will be worth continuing remote learning, he said.
While safer, remote learning has proven to be less effective than in-person learning, as students studying from home have been absent and failing at greater rates than their in-school counterparts.
One way to encourage more families to sign up their children for in-person instruction has been to offer regular coronavirus testing for students and staff, which most local school districts have done.
More recently, schools have been trying to secure vaccines, and school leaders and local officials have advocated for teachers to be added to the priority groups eligible to receive it.
Several districts will begin offering vaccine appointments to teachers who want one as early as this week. On Thursday, Edgewood obtained 100 vaccination appointments with University Health System for teachers in vaccination group 1B — enough to inoculate about 15 percent of the district’s teachers.
Pedro Martinez, superintendent of San Antonio ISD, said he thinks it unlikely that most students will be vaccinated before 2022. Neither of the coronavirus vaccines now available has been approved for children under 16.
“We can vaccinate our staff so that they feel safe, to reduce their anxiety so that they can focus on what is critical, which is academic support — making sure children do not fall through the cracks,” Martinez said in a recent panel discussion of superintendents and education officials from across the country.
But until most members of the public can get the shots in their arms, remote learning is likely to continue, he said.
(University Health said it also will provide a “limited number of doses” to Alamo Heights, East Central, Harlandale, Judson, North East, Northside and Southwest ISDs in a first phase of distribution, but was unsure when more would be available.)
Some school districts are considering starting “virtual academies” next year so families that prefer remote learning have an option that caters solely to them.
An online-only system would shield teachers from having to divide their attention between students in the classroom and those on the computer, and it could allow remote learners to receive more individualized support.
Administrators at Northside ISD, San Antonio’s largest district with more than 100,000 students, are planning to offer remote instruction as an option this fall, but are trying to make it work better than it has.
In his weekly newsletter Monday, Superintendent Brian Woods said the current model is unsustainable, but could be fixed by opening some kind of virtual academy.
“There is a lot of uncertainty in what we will be allowed to do in 2021-22, but (easing the load on teachers) is a top priority for us and it will, along with the imperative to serve our students in the best possible way, guide our work,” Woods said in the newsletter.
Hernandez and Maika also have considered the virtual academy option, but both noted it would take a lot of planning to make it work without widening the socalled digital divide among students, the gap in performance between those with better and worse access to devices and the internet.
“I’m just very cautious about trying to begin something that we know doesn’t work for most children and it becoming an option and allowing them to fail for a long period of time,” Maika said. “We can’t create a system that fails kids. We have to be very mindful of that.”
Furthermore, the Texas Education Agency has not yet said if it will continue past this school year to include remote learners as part of schools’ average daily attendance, the enrollment figure that determines the amount of state funding the districts receive at a time when many of them are hurting for cash.
Education Commissioner Mike Morath said that will be decided during this year’s regular session of the Legislature, which began last week.
Superintendents say it’s difficult to predict what the next couple of years will look like for students and school staff, but learning and safety will continue to be prioritized as much as possible.
“I’ve got 11,000 children that I’m responsible for and their associated families,” Hernandez said. “We’ve got lives in our hands, and I don’t take that for granted.”