Henrico Schools provides answers to common virtual learning questions

Henrico County Public Schools officials have added to the system’s website a page with answers to frequently asked questions about the virtual return to school.

The School Board voted unanimously July 23 to follow Superintendent Amy Cashwell’s recommendation and resume school Sept. 8 on a fully virtual path for the first nine weeks of the school year.

“The Board’s shared priority was to ensure the health and safety of ALL — HCPS students, staff and our community,” according to the new HCPS page.

Childcare options

Childcare during virtual learning has been a concern for working parents and a point cited by proponents of an in-person return before the School Board decided on a virtual return.

On its new page, the system addressed this concern by saying that officials are working with local organizations such as the Henrico Education Foundation, Henrico Police Athletic League and the YMCA to see if they can provide affordable care for elementary school students. HCPS also is contacting employers to ask that they give employees flexibility, according to the website, and teachers will record lessons so that students can work on assignments outside of normal school hours.

IEPs

Students with individualized education plans, or IEPs, have been included on the list of groups that might receive limited in-person instruction.

“Schools will be working to implement IEP services to the fullest extent possible,” according to the website – something that could occur through a hybrid model that aims to reserve in-person instruction for core subjects, a full-time distance learning model or support in integrated services that would plan to have students attend school four to five days a week and adhere to social distancing guidelines.

“Each student will have an IEP addendum to document the appropriate support and services that are required for the student’s return to school or the continuation of virtual learning,” according to the website, and case managers will be contacting families to discuss needed changes or support required in virtual education. Parents with concerns should contact their school’s principal to schedule an IEP meeting, according to the site.

In response to questions about meeting children’s executive functioning, social-emotional or behavioral needs, officials wrote on the site that IEP teams will consider whether students need additional or recovery services. Students with specific needs will receive additional in-person instruction or virtual learning support when their IEP teams determine they are appropriate.

English learners

English learners will learn either:

• in a hybrid model, receiving direct language services when they are in school and relevant asynchronous activities — activities with a flexible time frame — on the days that they aren’t in school;

• or will be in a fully virtual model and receive services from a Language Instruction Educational Program teacher in a weekly virtual class schedule, along with completing asynchronous activities.

English learners will be identified in the traditional screening process after they complete the home language survey during registration, according to the site, and the HCPS Welcome Center staff will make one-on-one appointments with students to arrange for them to complete as many screener assignments as possible before the school year starts.

Students not screened before the school year will be screened by their school’s LIEP teacher or HCPS Welcome Center staff. Although there will be precautions such as plexiglass, a student who isn’t comfortable meeting with a staff member in-person can get a provisional level through a parent phone interview until the student can be screened in-person.

For families who feel uncomfortable having their children return to school for in-person instruction — which the website states typically is the best possible environment for English learners to interact and acquire language — HCPS staff will receiving training about virtual instruction. A child’s teacher can advise which digital language-learning resources offered by HCPS might be best for the student.

Students who are receiving limited, in-person support will be required to wear face coverings on buses and at school facilities, according to the site. Employees and students will have daily temperature checks and reviews of screening questions at home on days they will enter school buildings. Although social distancing by 6 feet will be the policy, other measures – such as masks, face shields, sneeze guards, hand-washing protocols and increased cleaning – also will be implemented.

Meals and sports

The county is continuing to provide grab-and-go meals with distribution sites at multiple schools, which are listed on https://henricoschools.us/covid19/grab-and-go-breakfasts-and-lunches/. The distribution sites and schedule might change in September, the webpage said.

Sports seasons have been rearranged; the tentative schedule for sports, which the Virginia High School League approved, has winter sports running from Dec. 14 to Feb. 20 and fall sports running from Feb. 15 to May 1. The spring sports season would be April 12 through June 26.

Reopening requires HCPS (and other Virginia school districts) to show how they will comply with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 prevention strategies, according to the site, including face coverings, distancing, isolating symptomatic cases and others.

“As we move forward, we’ll strive to gradually increase opportunities — as health and safety conditions allow — for limited in-person learning, by focusing on groups of students for whom distance learning presents more challenges,” officials wrote on the site.