COLOMBIA – Even though the coronavirus pandemic has subsided with more people being vaccinated, school administrators in the state capital said they plan to maintain virtual learning options after discovering the demand for curriculum among parents, students and staff.
“I don’t know if it will ever be option number one, but I think it has consolidated its place in American education,” said Joshua Kitchens, executive director of Connections Academy, a full-time online charter school. that was launched in 2008.
One in 10 school districts across the country has already adopted, plans to adopt or is considering virtual education as a more permanent option, according to a survey by California-based nonprofit think tank RAND Corp., published in December .
Richland School District Two, Lexington-Richland 5 and the two largest districts in Lexington County have committed to a one-year virtual option for at least the academic year 2021-22, while Richland One has yet to make a final decision to expand its program. existing.
All of them will combine real-time streaming technology with independent study.
“Not only is there a local demand for an online learning option, but online learning has really become an expectation,” Howard Bissell, director of educational technology at Lexington One, told curators at a recent meeting.
Authorities are designing enrollments for up to 1,200 students in grades 6 through 12 at their Lexington One Online Learning Academy, or LOOLA, in 2021-22. This program will have a team of up to 55 teachers and students will have the chance to participate in extracurricular activities and sports through the school in which they are zoned.
Nearly a third of the 27,000 students in South Carolina’s sixth largest district were learning online in some capacity last year – 7,500 in all.
With access to the district’s information technology resources and the opportunity to enroll in college and career preparation courses, the online option will run alongside traditional classroom learning.
“Our teachers learned how to do their job differently, keeping their students’ well-being first,” said Bissell.
Karen York, a spokesman for Richland One, said the district authorities had a virtual high school program in place before the pandemic, which currently has 6,046 students enrolled. This will continue in 2021-22, but talks about expanding it to other levels of education have not yet taken place.
Initially born out of necessity, as classrooms were closed last spring, the early implementation of virtual programming among public schools in South Carolina was disastrous, as attendance was not recorded in some cases, technology gaps prevented online connections reliable and teachers did not have adequate training.
In July, state school superintendent Molly Spearman made a promise to lawmakers as districts prepared to continue virtual education until last fall.
“Things will be different,” she said. “We have much higher expectations.”
Lexington Two superintendent Nicholas Wade will ask his board of directors on February 25 to extend online learning until next year, but he doesn’t see it becoming a permanent part of the district’s programming.
“Having a vaccine available and actually receiving it are two different things, so unless we suddenly have 200 million single doses available when classes start, I don’t see how that can’t be an option,” he said.
Along with the implementation of the virtual option, Lexington Two trustees will be asked to define student attendance and work completion criteria.
Building an academic infrastructure with rigorous standards and accountability is the only way virtual learning works, says a school leader in West Columbia.
“As a school principal now, I can say that our children are losing socialization because they associate home with leisure and school with work and changing this dichotomy. It is difficult for children to understand this, ”Brian Newsome, director of the Gray Collegiate Academy and a member of the state’s Education Oversight Commission, said during a February 8 meeting.
Curators at Lexington-Richland 5, which educates 17,500 students, will consider a suggestion from district leaders to implement a virtual primary and secondary education platform next year that could host up to 1,292 students with the expectation of making it a permanent part of the curriculum. .
Many districts can offer virtual learning for another year because the expenses are covered by funding under the CARES Act. But when that money runs out, absorbing costs internally can make it difficult for the poorest areas to keep the program running.
“As we are looking to the future, we are trying to make this program more of a commitment, three to four years, so that we can get some data about it and then make sure that we are calibrating our schedule to make sure our students are receiving a quality education, ”said superintendent Christina Melton.
A United States Census study last year found that 93% of families with school-age children had some form of distance learning during the pandemic.
Adapting to such a huge change in educational standards cannot happen without the kind of planning that is being discussed in the Midlands meeting rooms, said Christine DiStefano, professor of educational psychology and research at the University of South Carolina.
“If remote learning is going to continue, there must be a way to encourage involvement and ensure that classes are delivered,” she told the state Education Supervision Committee on February 8. “Educators are noticing high levels of stress and anxiety and therefore additional ways of providing information would be helpful to them. “
James Ann Lynch Sheley, assistant superintendent for academics at Richland Two, said the district is starting to build enrollment projections for the one-year virtual option it will offer next year.
“It is a super difficult decision for parents to make and we are very, very respectful of it. We are currently monitoring the numbers every day, ”said Sheley. Parents will have an opt-in deadline in May for next year’s virtual learning option because “we want a perfect opening, without confusion.”
Sheley said that preparing now for a virtual path is also an effort to ensure that teachers feel part of the process and have a base to work on.
“Our teachers have been amazing and we don’t want to lose them and we can’t continue to ask them to do that,” she said.
State Representative Raye Felder, a Republican from Fort Mill and a member of the Education Oversight Committee, said bringing teachers into online model planning is essential, as many expressed frustration last year as decisions were made without their input .
“We don’t have another entire school year to find that out. These children are very late and these teachers, they did a terrible job with what they had to work with, but they are also frustrated, ”she said.
Kitchens, director of Connections Academy, said for the first time that his school had to adopt a maximum enrollment limit when demand exploded. He currently has 6,250 students from all 46 counties.
“Many of these brick and mortar school districts are seeing this as a viable option,” he said. “We need to make sure that the services we are providing are exceptional, so it definitely forced us to ensure that we are keeping up and moving forward.”