By Marcos Perales | Big Stick Editor |
It’s been about nine months since schools shut down for the year. A little under nine months ago, education scrapped itself up for a taste of all virtual learning from the eternal spring break of 2020 and on for the rest of the 2019-20 school year. Now it’s been about 4 months since distance and hybrid learning have been fully implemented. Going back to campus has been an option for students since Sept. 8.
With these time frames, it’s not at all safe to say that everyone has gotten the hang of learning through a computer. For those students who are still engaging remotely, the district decided it may be time to bring some of them back for grade related reasons. The week before Thanksgiving, there was a grade pull and analysis to determine what action needs to be taken on the part of the student. They were given two weeks to improved their grades.
“Students who continue to struggle after this period will have to return to school,” principal Bryan Norwood said. “We simply seek to support our students during these challenging times.”
In a quick informal survey, out of 13 of one student’s group of friends are failing. The district is trying to ensure that these students and others will get the help that they need.
“I believe that the schools should only be opened to the kids who are struggling with their classes because some home situations are not like others,” senior Enrique Casteneda said. “People are going to school now for socializing but we need to be careful of COVID.”
Of course just like everywhere else, Roosevelt has taken the necessary steps to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. For example, there are still desks in the middle of hallways to help maintain distance between staff and students.
“We have successfully ‘phased-in students’ over the course of this school year, and we feel we have an effective blueprint to facilitate student achievement and a safe environment,” Norwood said.
As mentioned before, every family situation is different. News reports such as KENS5 and KSAT12 have been recently reporting a number of a little over 1,000 new coronavirus cases in San Antonio at the beginning of just this week. With this in mind, flexibility will be involved in this process of more phasing in.
“Once a student opts in…we’d love for them to continue this mode of learning for the remainder of the year,” Norwood said. “That said, we understand that there may be instances in which a student needs to return to remote learning…we will assess these situations on a case-by-case basis.”
