The plan, proposed at an Atlanta Board of Education meeting on Feb. 1, has not yet been decided, but it will focus on the unfinished learning that dates back to March 2020 when schools were first closed, Superintendent Lisa Herring said .
Students across the country have spent much of the past year learning remotely in an effort to mitigate the spread of the virus, and many worry that the disruption will leave them with a lesser teaching and development experience.
Although some teachers question whether it is safe to return yet, officials in cities across the country insist on bringing students back into the classroom and making up for lost time.
‘If we can identify the students who are not proficient and higher, and we know that their learning has been interrupted and that there is a loss, we should not think about the need to keep them in front of us so that we can support the gap and accelerate? Herring said. “And it represents a very specific population.”
The population includes vulnerable students from an educational and socio-economic perspective among the 51,000 students in 87 schools and five programs in the district, Herring said. To that end, she said the district not only looks at summer programming, but also at the entire school year calendar.
“We’re looking at the calendar. I think we should,” Herring said. “We started with four weeks, where we said all day, focusing on quality teaching and intervention and monitoring, as well as enrichment and well-being.”
Stop threats and lawsuits
On Wednesday, Chicago Teachers Union members will vote on a proposed framework for reopening after the union negotiated a strike against the Chicago Public School System and Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who called for a return to personal education.
CTU said teachers also want to return, but do not pose a health risk to themselves, their families and their students.
The proposed framework has pre-K and group students returning on Thursday, K-5 staff returning on February 22 and their students the following week. Grade 6-8 staff members will return on March 1 with students returning on March 8, said dr. Chicago CEO Janice Jackson said.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom asked the state legislature for a $ 6.6 billion package to get students, teachers and staff safely back into classrooms, he announced Monday.
Decision-makers have been discussing plans for the past few weeks and approaching a resolution that first focuses on the youngest and most vulnerable students and possibly goes through the rest.
The package follows the city of San Francisco, which on Wednesday sued its own school district to get schools to reopen their campuses. A preliminary agreement was reached on Sunday to reopen if the city is in the orange level of the state’s reopening criteria, or if it is in the red level and vaccines are made available to teachers.
The district also provides personal protective equipment for students and staff, socially removed classrooms and workspaces, and regular testing, including safety protocols.
“This is an important step forward toward a goal we share with so many parents: safe reopening of school buildings for students and staff,” said the unions representing workers in the San Francisco Unified School District.
In West Virginia, all teachers over the age of 50 who said they wanted the vaccine had already received it, according to Gov. Jim Justice. In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine has drawn up a plan to vaccinate all teachers by the end of February, with the goal of returning all students to classrooms by March 1.
CNN’s Meridith Edwards and Elizabeth Stuart, Cheri Mossburg, Gregory Lemos, Omar Jimenez, Joe Sutton, Gisela Crespo and Yon Pomrenze contributed to this report.