Hall County School District officials are weighing three different options for the reopening of school this fall as coronavirus likely will continue to be a problem.
"I've certainly come to a point where I believe we've got to think about now is how do we co-exist with COVID," Superintendent Will Schofield said during a school board discussion Monday night. "COVID is not going awa today, it's not going away tomorrow. there won't be a vaccine in August, there won't be a vaccine in November. We're going to have this with us for awhile."
While no firm decision has been made on a schedule for the upcoming school year, Schofield, along with Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Kevin Bales, said he would like to see students and teachers back in school buildings by Aug. 5, 2020.
"Personally, I am pushing for Aug. 5 that we would be open for school, that we do everything we can to sanitize and socially distance to keep kids healthy and we get used to being ready to mitigate if an when we have cases," Schofield said.
At the same time, Schofield said district officials are trying to come up with a plan for parents who do not feel comfortable sending their children into an environment where they might become ill or where they might bring an infectious illness home to other members of the family.
Bales said a hybrid schedule model is another option on the table, allowing alternate learning days to minimize numbers in school buildings.
"[In my opinion] that's one of the more challenging options for our district for different reasons. One is because of the pure size of our school district - the way we run buses and the amount of mileage we have to cover," Bales said. He also noted that a hybrid schedule would be difficult for working parents to manage if a child is in school only a few days per week. Additionally, homes where there are multiple students could have different schedules for each child, which would be difficult from a management standpoint, Bales said.
The third option would be a continuation of online learning only, an option no one at Monday night's meeting appeared to support.
Board Vice Chair Nath Morris said he has received a number of emails from parents about the upcoming school year.
"Every email that I've received has said 'let's get kids back to school,'" Morris said, also asking what administrators had heard from a survey sent to parents and teachers on the subject.
"The overwhelming majority of both our parents and our teachers are in favor of returning to school, returning to brick and mortar," Bales said. "I will say there are are about 25 to 30% that are either concerned, slightly concerned or very concerned...we've been working with our digital convergance team to have plans for those families who...want a different option."
Board member Bill Thompson said while he understood the health concerns some have expressed, he is worried about the ability of students to keep pace if they continue exclusively with online learning.
"They're just going to get further and further behind compared to the ones that are in the building," Thompson said. "I don't know if that's the case, but I have a feeling that could be the case."
Schofield acknowledged Thompson's concern, but noted that there are students who are medically fragile that need the online learning option.
"If that was one of my students, I would really have some concerns about them going back to school right now," Schofield said. "We'll just have to be very careful to do our dead-level best to meet the needs of all of our families, all of our community members."
Schofield emphasized that while Aug. 5 was the goal for district officials, the decision has not been finalized.
"We're also realists and we know that we're going to have to watch the data to see what's happening," Schofield said.
