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With news that three nonprofit organizations will use as many as 16 or 17 Henrico County schools as locations for full-day child care service during the first nine weeks of the school year – while students are learning virtually – some in the community have asked how that differs from just sending students back to school full time.
It’s a question that Henrico School Board member Kristi Kinsella of the Brookland District has received a number of times, and one she posted to school officials during the board’s Aug. 13 work session.
The programs that will be in schools will have their own staffing models to determine capacity and will have an average ratio of about 10 students and small groups, HCPS Director of the Department of Family and Community Engagement Adrienne Cole Johnson said.
Tuckahoe District representative Marcie Shea asked Superintendent Amy Cashwell about precautions to ensure safe school usage while teachers and staff, students receiving limited instruction and childcare programs are in the buildings at the same time as child care classes.
Any agreement for private childcare providers to use the buildings requires that they follow the system’s safety and health mitigation plan, Cashwell replied, and the school buildings will be portioned off so that the programs have access points that do not connect them to faculty and staff using the buildings or where students might be visiting. Administrators will work with teachers providing in-person support to make sure that they have everything they need, she said.
Help for teachers
Teachers navigating the switch to a fully virtual plan have had assistance and will continue to receive more, officials said. They’ll have three professional learning days so that they can complete asynchronous professional development, Shea said, and they’ll have time built into their weeks for professional development, HCPS Director of Teaching, Learning and Innovation Mike Dussault said.
More than 750 teachers and leaders attended a two-day learning workshop focused on distanced learning taught by Doug Fisher, Dussault said.
Substitutes will receive professional learning on Chromebooks, Schoology and other parts of virtual teaching, school system Chief Learning Officer Lesley Hughes told the board.
Instructional assistants can also receive professional learning, and innovative learning coaches should be trained to have IAs on their radars, Hughes said.
Technology assistance
The school system has issued about 600 WiFi hotspots to students without home internet access, and the technology department has received an additional 600 hotspots, said Brian Maddox, the system’s director of technology.
HCPS has implemented web filtering for staff and student devices to block harmful and malicious content, Maddox said.
The department will order more hotspots if its current supply dwindles to 200 or 300, Maddox said, to stay ahead of the demand. The department also is establishing outdoor access points for school WiFi so that students in front of a school or in its bus loop could receive WiFi, he said.
Cooper asked about the number of hotspots compared to the number of students in the school system and the phrasing “while supplies last” for hotspots that Maddox used in the presentation slide on technology.
The school system met the need for hotspots in the spring, Cashwell said, and has increased inventory in case of increased need. But, she said, it can’t promise that everybody who needs a hotspot will get one, because the provider — T-Mobile in this case — might not be able to manufacture enough to meet demand.
“I just want to make sure that our families do know, regardless of where you live, that we are committed to connectivity to ensure that you have access to the distribution of the content that we want your child to have for a successful year,” Cooper said.
Varina District representative Alicia Atkins asked that the technology team consider sharing tips on tickets with the hotspots explaining that they are recommended to support about three devices and that streaming will reduce bandwidth.
She also said that the need for hotspots might be worth exploring again, with different languages available, since the school system is using the need demonstrated in the spring based on a survey that was sent via the internet, and since location and density, not just finances, can affect internet access.
Atkins and her child picked up a hotspot, she said, because the Internet where she lives is slow, especially after 6 p.m. when the majority of her neighborhood is using it.
