JUDY WOODRUFF: Roughly 300,000 students in New York City Public Schools
are returning to small and socially distanced in-school classes this week.
But, like nearly two-thirds of the largest school districts,
many still will be doing distance learning.
Amna Nawaz looks at how the experiences teaching and learning this year have varied greatly.
But, first, let's hear from parents, students, teachers and school board members
about what the first month or so has been like for them.
DEVIN EVANS, High School Teacher: My name is Devin Evans. I'm a threat grade African
American literary history instructor at a school in the Far South Side.
We are hardworking on weekends, nighttime, mornings, and it takes a lot more
time to prepare an engaging lesson for remote instruction.
BRIANNA GONZALES, Student: Hi, my name is Brianna Gonzales, and I'm a seventh grader.
School is a lot harder this year with remote learning, because
it feels like we have a lot of schoolwork. It's really not that much,
but it feels like a lot, because you have to keep track of everything by yourself.
AMANDA PRIETO, Parent: My name is Amanda Prieto, and I live in Miami-Dade County.
I have two children in the Miami-Dade County public school system.
The first day school started with the students logging into the same platform,
and what happened was, they all experienced a whole bunch of errors,
so they were not able to communicate with their teachers or their classmates.
TRISHIA BERMUDEZ, Special Needs Parent: My name is Trishia Bermudez, and I live in Rockaway. Queens.
And Matthew is a 7-year-old boy
with a rare chromosomal deletion. He goes through the summer. He's in District 75,
which is a specialized program in New York City for students with severe disabilities.
GABRIELLE VOID, Student: My name is Gabrielle Void. I'm 14 years old,
and I attend Frederick Douglass High School.
Some positives to virtual learning are,
I can get my work done a lot faster. I could be more creative when it comes to doing my work.
JENNIFER VALEK, Parent: My name is Jennifer Valek. I live in Charleston, South Carolina,
and I have children in the second grade and sixth grade.
A month before school started, they called a special board meeting
and took the five-day face-to-face option away,
and said kids would go in cohorts. So, half the students would go two days a week.
ROB BARRON, Des Moines, Iowa, School Board Member: My name is Rob Barron. I'm
born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. I'm a father,
and I'm currently serving my second term on the Des Moines School Board.
The governor has said that, unless we reopen our buildings,
we face a handful of sanctions, possible repetition of school days at the end of the year,
accreditation for our district, sanction on our administrators licenses.
DEVIN EVANS: I am starting to master -- it's a platform called -- I think it's Nearpod,
where you make interactive PowerPoints.
Now, I'm not 100 percent efficient with it, but I was able to begin
last week the tutorials. And I made a couple of slides that kids can begin to
mark. So, once I figured out how to get that one part done, I was so happy.
BRIANNA GONZALES: I'm excited to go back to school
and see everybody again, even though we will be wearing a mask on.
AMANDA PRIETO: Because of numerous difficulties, during week two, we actually had a big school
board meeting, and they unanimously voted to change the system mid-semester.
So, now we have transitioned to other district-approved tools, like Zoom and
Microsoft Teams, and so teachers are transitioning to those tools right now.
TRISHIA BERMUDEZ: We had a summer school teacher. And
she had a strict, like, timeline and was interactive with the students.
At one point, they told me I could leave. I appreciate all his angels,
because they are, that have helped him throughout this.
GABRIELLE VOID: Virtual learning has been a very interesting experience, to say the least.
But I do hope, in a couple of months we do get to go back into the classroom.
JENNIFER VALEK: Our superintendent, when we originally were told that we
were going hybrid, that, April 8, we were to be face-to-face.
Now she has backtracked to that date. We have got to push our board go to five days face-to-face.
It's exhausting.
ROB BARRON: We're looking at their success in the virtual model and trying to ascertain
who needs to be back in that -- in those buildings.
This is all on a path to eventually having students back in buildings,
but figuring out when and how is no small feat in a district like mine.
AMNA NAWAZ: Let's look at some of these tough questions that
educators and families are facing now and how decisions are made to reopen schools.
Dan Domenech is executive director of The School Superintendents Association, and he joins me now.
Mr. Domenech, welcome to the "NewsHour."
As you heard from all those folks there, schools, in terms of how
they're carrying out their learning, are all over the place across the country.
When it comes to where schools landed, going hybrid or all remote are all in-person, how are
most districts doing that? And how have we seen that unfold over these first few weeks of school?
DANIEL DOMENECH, Executive Director, The School Superintendents Association: You know, Amna, it
changes almost on a daily basis.
At this stage of the game, the majority of schools are actually doing remote learning. Second to
that are schools that are doing hybrid, and the smallest number are doing in-person learning.
But we see this changing constantly. A school that is doing remote today may be doing
in-person tomorrow, or a school that is doing in-person today may have to
go remote tomorrow because there is an infection in the student on the part of students or staff.
So, it's a very fluid situation that changes on a regular basis. And I suspect that this is going
to be pretty much the course for the better part of this semester, if not the entire school year.
AMNA NAWAZ: So, this hybrid model was supposed to be sort of the best of both worlds. It
allows students some kind of in-person instruction, but it doesn't have them in
school all the time and therefore increase the risk of infection, goes the argument.
In the places that you have seen it unfold,
how has it been working? Are the pros outweighing the cons?
DANIEL DOMENECH: The pros are outweighing the conservative,
because at least we're able to get the kids in school.
The problem, of course, is that they're only in school perhaps two days a week,
and the rest of the time, they're doing remote learning. So this does not satisfy the need, for
example, that parents that are working and need to have their children in school all of the time.
But it certainly is the best of the possible alternatives at this point in time.
AMNA NAWAZ: And you mentioned very briefly that the minority
of schools are doing full in-person learning.
Where, by and large, are we seeing that happening?
And why is it allowed to happen there? DANIEL DOMENECH: It's happening mostly in
remote areas, places like New Hampshire, Maine, Wyoming, Montana, where you have remote areas,
where they really don't have the infection rate that we have in other parts of the country.
The population is smaller. The number of students in school is smaller,
so the social spacing issue is not there. They can wear their face mask.
So, that's where it's happening. And it's working in those areas, primarily because they are remote
and because they have not been as affected by the pandemic as urban areas are.
That's why you see that most large urban school systems are
doing remote and probably will be doing remote for a while.
AMNA NAWAZ: We should mention you're in Florida right now. That's where we're talking to you.
And Florida, as we remember, was heavily criticized for really pushing schools en masse
to reopen in-person. A lot of people worried that would lead to a huge spike in cases.
And, so far, one recent analysis found they haven't really seen that huge a spike. How
is that informing how aggressively other schools are planning to reopen?
DANIEL DOMENECH: Well, the problem here in Florida -- and I am here at this particular
point in time -- is that, at the same time that schools are being pushed to reopen in-person,
the governor is also removing
the edicts on restaurants and beaches and other places in terms of large grouping.
It's almost business as usual. And that almost guarantees that we're going to see a spike again
and that a lot of these schools that are opening in-person may have to shut down,
as we see an increase in the number of cases in terms of students and staff.
This has been the play in other places. We have seen it happen.
Unfortunately, it probably will happen in Florida as well.
AMNA NAWAZ: We should note, the kids who already struggled to learn,
kids who don't have full-time parents overseeing their education,
who don't have Internet access at home, kids who have special needs and require more attention,
they're falling further behind as they're in hybrid or remote learning.
You mentioned you're going to see distance learning for a while. What does that mean,
through the fall, through the spring?
DANIEL DOMENECH: Probably for the better part of this first semester. A lot of it,
in terms of what happens after January, will be dependent on, is there a vaccine?
Is there enough herd immunity? What -- all of these factors, I think, will come into play.
But we have heard the director of the CDC say, for example, that, even with a vaccine,
a mask and spacing will still be the best practice in terms of avoiding getting the disease.
AMNA NAWAZ: And I know a lot of families out there are wanting to
get back to school, but safely, to do it safely.
That is Dan Domenech, executive director of The School Superintendents Association.
Thank you so much for your time.
DANIEL DOMENECH: Thank you for having me.