School districts’ planning for reopening in the fall is just getting started, but institutions are asking parents what they think about education during the lingering coronavirus pandemic – reaching out through online questionnaires.
“The survey will be key in driving our decisions,” Forest Hills Superintendent David Lehman said.
In “Operation Ranger,” the Forest Hills survey, the questions range from simple to more complicated.
For instance, parents are asked what form of transportation they prefer – personal vehicles or school buses? – and how comfortable they are with sending their children back to a brick-and-mortar setting in a few months.
The survey also includes questions about future methods of education.
It asks which option fits best “if students cannot attend school Monday through Friday during the traditional school hours” – all online learning, or a hybrid and staggered schedule model.
The latter consists of several variations, including half of the students attending every day for half a day and finishing the other portion online while the group that started online in the morning spends the rest of the day at school.
There’s also the choice of alternating days and groups with online instruction, alternating weeks or one day of in-person learning per week and the other four days completed online.
“The traditional model would be the desired programming,” Lehman said. “However, we are looking at ways to customize and personalize learning for our community’s unique needs.”
‘Mindset’ of parents
Lehman questioned if the school day needs to change to be more effective and efficient and whether a typical eight-period day suits the students anymore.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s guidance for schools to reopen for the fall term requires each district to have a health and safety plan in place that is approved by its school board and then sent to the Pennsylvania Department of Education and posted on the district’s website.
Within these plans, each institution must determine the best local options, including how to operate in each of the three recovery phases, identification of a pandemic coordinator and/or team, implementation of social distancing for pupils, a process for monitoring students and staff, and numerous other safety protocols.
Penn Cambria School District has also released a parent survey, though it’s not as in-depth as the one Forest Hills put online.
William Marshall, superintendent at Penn Cambria, said his school’s poll serves simply as “preliminary data collection.”
“We’re trying to ascertain the mindset of all of our parents,” he explained.
This initial survey asks for the parent’s preference on education, either in-person or a cyber program run by the district.
Another option asks if the preference will depend on health and safety conditions and restrictions at the time of the reopening.
Additionally, there’s room for feedback and suggestions.
Marshall said this is just phase one of developing Penn Cambria’s plan for returning to school, and he could see continuing to poll families in the future.
‘So many unknowns’
Richland and Portage school districts have launched parent surveys as well.
The education section in the questionnaire from Portage provides the options of traditional learning, a modified approach with a limited number of students attending including online teaching, or everything online.
The discussion doesn’t stop there, though.
Following questions on cleaning and transportation, it further inquires about education options, asking if the school day has to be modified, which is preferred – student groups on-site every other day or every other week, online only or a half-day model.
Richland’s survey asks for the same input – but the hybrid option for the school is day-on and day-off, or week-on and week-off, with online instruction between.
Thomas Butler, executive director of Intermediate Unit 8, said he has heard about regional districts considering these hybrid options as alternatives to a traditional school day, but as far as he knows none have adopted one yet.
“Most of our schools are doing everything within their power to get kids back full time in the fall,” Butler said. “There are still so many unknowns about COVID and the requirements necessary to create a safe environment in schools that it is difficult for schools to make a decision.”
Many schools have already established pandemic response teams and have begun the steps of creating reopening plans that will be presented to their school boards in July.
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.