Stafford delays school start date, looks at mixing in-person and virtual learning

Students in Stafford County are getting an extra week of summer vacation as the start of the school year has been pushed back for additional teacher training.

At their June 23 meeting, the Stafford County School Board approved an updated school calendar that both delays the start of the school year by one week and adds two additional days onto the academic year. These changes have caused the school year to now begin on Aug. 17 and end on May 28.

“The changes in the calendar are to facilitate the necessary professional learning that we’re going to have to have moving into this school year. We backed the school calendar start date up one week which would provide our teachers one week of additional professional learning,” said Thomas Nichlos, chief officer of high schools and school safety.

In addition to changing the start and end dates this academic year, the school board has removed all early release days.

Initially, there were early releases on Dec. 17-18 and May 27-28. Teachers are also losing their teacher workdays on Nov. 2 and Feb. 25.

It is unknown if the early release days and teacher workdays will return next school year.

“I’ve gotten so many complaints from staff, bus drivers, and parents [about early release days]. It just seems like the early outs cause challenges for parents and for staff,” said Patricia Healy, Rock Hill District Supervisor.

While adjustments to the school calendar have been made, the school board has not released any concrete plans for how schools will function next year in regards to the coronavirus.

The school board has said it will prioritize the development of strategies to get students back into the classroom as much as possible, particularly for the younger students and other students with special and unique learning needs.

Three schedule options across all grade levels have been drafted and would result in a school year that is entirely virtual or both virtual and in-person.

If it is both virtual and in-person, there would be two-different groups of students who would alternate on a daily or bidaily basis between virtual and in-person learning.

“[Both virtual and in-person learning] creates consistency for students and families,” stated school board documentation.

The school division anticipates being in phase three of Gov. Ralph Northam’s reopening plan by the time the school year starts. This would entail more in-person instruction for all students, remote instruction to supplement in-person learning, strict social distancing measures, and childcare offered before and after school.

According to a survey conducted by the school division, 65% of parents want as much in-person instruction as possible, and 27% would like the option of a virtual-only model.

To meet the social distancing requirements for in-person education, Stafford County Schools would have to maintain “six feet separation to the greatest extent possible,” according to the Virginia Department of Education guidelines.

This could result in staggering schedules, ridding classrooms of excess furniture, repurposing spaces in the school buildings, increasing the number of daily bus routes from 462 to 571, and only allowing less than one-third of normal capacity on school buses.

“The lowest risk would be six-feet of social distancing on the bus,” said Superintendant Scott Kizner.

Students may also have to consume lunch within their classrooms, wear face coverings, and practice routine hand hygiene and health screenings. Staff may additionally be equipped with in-classroom sanitation and coronavirus training, as well as have to attend mandated annual training remotely.

If it is suspected that a student or staff member has the coronavirus during the school day, there will be a protocol established that creates clinical isolation rooms to separate sick students/staff, a control clinic traffic to prevent potential exposures, and a separate protocol for recovered students to return to school.

“We want to be very good partners with parents in helping them understand the importance of keeping children at home who should not be at school,” said Kizner.

It is estimated that establishing all the aforementioned procedures will cost the school division $4.75 million. This factors in $1.25 million enhanced cleaning costs, $2.1 million additional transportation costs, $1.14 million supply costs (masks, thermometers), $160,000 in meal distribution costs, and $100,000 in additional counselor hours.

This being said, not all parents are keen about them returning to school. According to a survey taken by the school division, 61.5% plan to have their students return to school, 35.3%  will decide based on the adopted learning model, and 3.3% (306) will not return at all.

“Once we really land on our plan, we really go back to parents and say ‘please let us know you’re coming,’ because that’s going to be critical for us to get our routes right and to get our classrooms right,” said Superintendant Kizner.