Tuscaloosa School Systems Give Insight On Return Plans

The beginning of a new school year is less than a month away for Tuscaloosa city and county schools as administrators gear up for what is expected to be a challenging year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Leaders from both systems spoke via Zoom to members of the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama Wednesday to provide clarity to plans moving into the fall months, ranging from virtual learning to in-building protocols.

While plans will have similarities between the two districts, each action plan resulted in tailored plans to best accommodate the respective systems, based on resources. For example, Tuscaloosa City Schools (TCS), after the motion was approved by the school board Tuesday evening, announced it would return to school in an all-virtual format, at least for the first nine weeks. Conversely, the Tuscaloosa County School System’s (TCSS) plan provides an on-campus option for parents beginning Aug. 20, along with a two-pronged set of options for those not willing to send their children to school for in-person learning.

COMPARING AND CONTRASTING

Dennis Duncan, director of career and technical education for TCSS, told meeting attendees that surveys of families conducted have indicated 70% of the county system's 18,000 students are choosing to send their children back to school.

“We’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with every aspect of this and believe this plan to be the very best for our students, our families and our staff,” Duncan said.

Duncan then elaborated on the off-campus options, which will see parents given the choice of remote learning with commitments for nine week-increments or for the entire year — a plan similar to what was considered by the city school system before Tuesday’s decision to move exclusively to virtual learning to begin the year. The need for commitment to one track or the other on the part of parents, both systems said, was due to staffing preparations.

For city schools, Superintendent Mike Daria said parents can enroll for virtual options until July 31. He went on to point out, at last check in June, 1,886 of the system's roughly 10,500 students had already signed up for full-time, at-home learning beginning Aug. 20 through May 2021.

“We expect that number to go somewhere between the 2,500 to 3,000 mark before the end of July,” Daria said.

Both systems also expressed the possibility for staggered in-person attendance days, which could still be an option as the local pandemic situation changes for the better or worse. Similarities in these models would see one cohort of students attend Mondays and Tuesdays, while a second group of students would receive in-person learning on Thursdays and Fridays — leaving the buildings empty for cleaning on Wednesdays. Students under this plan would still receive virtual instruction on the days they were not in the school building for in-person learning.

“Flexibility is the key for this,” Daria said, urging patience on the part of TCS families. “We are going into a situation we do not know. We have not planned for a health crisis at this scale, so we are asking our families to be flexible with us.”

Daria and Duncan also both acknowledged the difficulties brought about by the swift shutdown of Alabama schools in March as COVID-19 cases began to appear across the state, which provided learning experiences for the systems to apply this fall.

“March was an emergency situation, it took us a while to transition,” Daria said of the city school system. “We don’t need any stop to keep us from learning. The logic we recommended and the board approved, the goal is to start with full-time at home and slowly phase our students back into the building, possibly before the first nine weeks. We put that out there for families to be able to prepare, but if we pass Labor Day and cases are in a better spot, we maybe could go to a staggered day before the [first] nine weeks is up.”

Duncan added that the task facing the county schools is a different situation going into the fall when compared to the myriad problems the system endured in March, thanks to hindsight and lessons learned in the first months of the pandemic.

"We know we were ill prepared, we sent kids home and struggled to provide resources in their hands so they could continue to work," Duncan said. "That period of time, we all know, we lost it with those kids. We’re not going to let that happen again."

TECHNOLOGY

One set of challenges impacting county schools, Duncan said, are the technological gaps, considering TCSS is not a One-to-One district, meaning the system does not have an inventory of wifi-capable devices to give to each individual student.

“We have polled our families and determined approximately how many devices we were short and made some extensive purchases,” Duncan said.

TCSS parents will be able to check out certain devices, Duncan said, who also alluded to the system’s purchase of additional wifi capability in the form of hot spots.

“It’s going to be a challenge, but that’s part of the reason [the system can’t exclusively start out with virtual learning], since we have not been One-to-One in the past," he said. "We need our students to come to grips with what learning looks like virtually and our teachers will have to get used to that. It’s going to be a challenging year, but ... we don’t want technology to be a hurdle.”

Conversely, Tuscaloosa City Schools in March saw its school board order 591 wifi hot-spot devices, along with a recent purchase of $800,000 in laptops, Daria said.

Daria then said the city school system has received additional funds to be able to purchase more technology. What’s more, the superintendent also said TCS contacted all 11,000 students to check in on their access to technology and learning.

“We are fortunate in the city of Tuscaloosa that we do not see [access to technology] as a barrier,” he said.

WHAT’S TO COME

Both systems conveyed their own preparations for in-building protocols as they relate to social distancing and cleaning, which will likely see individually-planned approaches for each school.
While city schools will begin the school year in a virtual format, Daria noted the system began stocking up on cleaning supplies and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) before the initial shutdown in March.

Daria said the current plan for when students do return involves a focus on disinfecting high-touch areas, while performing more advanced routine cleaning throughout the entire day. In both systems, children ages seven and older, per state and local mandates, will also be required to wear masks or face-coverings.

On the county side, though, Duncan said measures are being undertaken to further train custodial staff for the task ahead, along with placing more of an onus on teachers to ensure their classrooms are disinfected. He also said the system will use sanitizing foggers periodically inside its buildings.

While the changes will ultimately impact day-to-day life for teachers, it will also have a noticeable impact on classroom dynamics for students.

“We will be asking teachers when a youngster leaves, teachers will have to take the lead to make sure desks are cleaned,” Duncan said. “In so many ways, we moved away from individual desks to learning centers and tables, so we will spread kids out as much as we can.”

Other concerns mentioned that could prove problematic for many on the horizon included a lack of substitute teachers for the city school system and the overall impact had on the business community for employers of parents who may have students that cannot attend in-person classes.

Kelly Services, a management marketing company, handles the pool of substitutes for Tuscaloosa City Schools, Daria said. The company is currently in the process of determining plans for the return to school for substitutes, which Daria said will give the city school system a better indication of who will be committed to teach this school year.

Daria explained the system has also received a high number of calls from former teachers working as substitutes who have expressed their desire to not return to the classroom during the ongoing pandemic.

“They are getting a good picture of how many subs we do have, but this is why we’re doing a workaround to build virtual capacity up front,” Daria said.

Those in the meeting also heard from Chamber Chief Operating Officer Donny Jones, who alternately serves as executive director for West Alabama Works — a regional workforce development entity that is involved in childcare initiatives.

Jones stressed the need to promote safety above all else for teachers and students, but said a recent meeting between some larger employers and small businesses focused on the impact had on employers due to schools moving to virtual learning.

“If classrooms go in and out because of COVID or exposures, that’s going to be a big impact on employers,” Jones said, before underscoring the effects of the pandemic as a community-wide issue that would need to be addressed by churches, nonprofits and other groups with the available resources. “We have got to keep our businesses open. We have got to get our schools open and have got to get our young people educated.”