After nearly six months of remote learning, Charlottesville City Schools is moving forward with its plans to begin in-person classes at the start of the new year.
During its virtual meeting last Thursday, the Charlottesville School Board unanimously voted to allow the district’s COVID-19 advisory committee to continue working on its reopening proposal, which received a stamp of approval from CCS Superintendent Dr. Rosa Atkins earlier this month.
Under the current proposal, preschool through sixth grade will have in-person classes four days a week, starting January 11. Seventh grade and up will be at school twice a week beginning February 1, and do independent work the other days.
The board will take a final vote on the plan during its December 16 meeting.
According to a binding intent form sent out at the beginning of the month, 2,296 students, or 66 percent of the district, want to attend in-person classes. Staff are reaching out to the roughly 17 percent of families who have not filled out their form yet.
Because the district is currently using all of its bus drivers to deliver meals and transport special needs students, it plans to use CARES funds to contract additional drivers, who will help serve the 373 students who said they cannot get to school without the bus.
Though COVID safety restrictions make providing large-scale bus service very difficult, the district will also work to accommodate as many of the 561 other students who requested bus rides—but could still get to school without them—as possible.
In stark contrast to previous surveys, a majority of the district’s 470 teachers indicated they felt safe enough to return to the classroom.
Seventy-two percent of kindergarten through sixth grade teachers volunteered to do face-to-face classes, along with 65 percent of those teaching seventh through 12th grade.
However, 139 teachers and 24 instructional assistants across all grades asked to continue to work remotely. Most said they were either high-risk, or taking care of a loved one who is.
An additional 27 teachers and nine instructional assistants requested paid medical leave through the federal government’s Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which requires select employers to provide their staff with paid leave for reasons related to COVID-19.
Though the district so far has approved every complete request for leave, Charlottesville Education Association President Jessica Taylor accused administrative staff of not properly communicating with teachers in need of ADA accommodations.
“Educators who submitted paperwork should receive acknowledgment of receipt without having to make numerous follow-up inquiries,” she said during Thursday’s public comment. “There’s [also] been a breakdown in understanding…One CEA member was given a choice to either provide face-to-face services for a student or resign. She chose to resign.”
“We don’t want any teachers resigning. COVID will not last forever. We’re going to get through this,” said Atkins. “We need them. We want them on board.”
Also during public comment, parents voiced their concerns with the binding intent form.
“There are families like my own who are choosing on the intent form to go in-person, even though it is not our preference, for fear we will get locked out if we change our minds later,” said Maria Stein.
While the city’s current numbers are low compared to the rest of Virginia, health experts anticipate case spikes in the coming weeks due to winter weather and holiday gatherings.
“We will handle individual cases,” responded Atkins. But now, “in order to plan for transportation, make a master schedule, and assign teachers, we have to know who’s going to be in-person, who has elected to continue with virtual.”
During the rest of the meeting, board members discussed class schedules for middle and high schoolers at length, taking issue with the large amount of asynchronous learning.
The district currently plans to divide each grade level into two groups made up of both in-person and virtual learners. When one group of students is in the classroom, their classmates in the same group will watch the class live on Zoom. Meanwhile, students in the other group will work on independent assignments from home during school hours.
Having far fewer live classes worries board members that students will not progress academically.
“To me, that takes us back to last spring when the quality of what was happening wasn’t real good and we were all scrambling,” said school board member Sherry Kraft. “We’ve done so much work to provide quality instruction.”
But with the limited staffing available, asynchronous learning is impossible to avoid, explained CHS Principal Eric Irizarry.
“Every student’s schedule is so unique at the high school, and we’re the only high school. We have two and half chemistry teachers, we have one orchestra teacher, one band,” he said. “A student that comes into the building, they’re going to need to see all of those teachers for that day. There’s not a way to run a concurrent master schedule.”
Still, the board urged district staff and the COVID-19 advisory committee to look at different ways to deliver instruction during the times set aside for independent work, and present their findings at the December 16 meeting.
“I would rather them continue to be virtual then go to that model,” said board chair Jennifer McKeever of middle and high schoolers. “We are small enough to solve the problem, and not have three days of asynchronous learning.”