Six months ago, the first case of the coronavirus within Alabama's borders sounded the highest alarm to the state's top officials and causing schools to close through what ended up being the end of the school year.
Since then, educators have scrambled to develop a plan to continue learning, while also worrying about food security and the safety of children sheltered away from their eyes. In impoverished and rural areas, they struggled to find solid solutions to inequalities that have existed and were only exasperated by the pandemic.
Children with special needs, those who were already behind, those who don't speak English, those who lack transportation, those without access to technology and those without security nets were already in educational jeopardy before the pandemic, with the perils they face only amplified by COVID-19.
Food sites were established, buses were outfitted with WiFi, an online school platform was chosen, devices were ordered at rates manufacturers haven't been able to keep up with and districts were given the responsibility of weighing the needs of parents and teachers, while also fulfilling their mission of educating society's next generation.
Despite all of the planning and innovation and what has been learned, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic will be great for most, and even greater for some others.
"It certainly feels like it's been longer than six months," state superintendent Eric Mackey said when asked to reflect on what's happened since March.
"The thing we were most proud of is we were able to close down the schools fast and in an orderly way and get some level of instruction out to almost every child in the state," he said.
"The thing we are most concerned about — we really don't have a good idea of how much learning was done," he continued.
While some students were able to adjust to virtual instruction, Mackey said, "There are other who certainly fell behind ... and we don't know which is which because we didn't do any end of the year assessments."
Considering how new the pandemic still is, and how fluid situations have proven to be, Mackey said high quality research isn't available yet, but that, "most education researchers are saying the gaps are going to be pretty strong over the next year. Kids who don't have support at home are probably going to fall way behind."
As of last week, all districts had resumed instruction after the summer break, whether completely virtual or a mix of both. Each developed their own plans, guided by the advice of education and health officials who gained new, and sometimes contradictory, information each day.
The Alabama Department of Public Health is currently working to launch a portal that will release how many positive cases among both teachers and students are identified within a district each week, Mackey said during a state board meeting Thursday, but a time frame as to when it will be available is unknown. Additionally, the information will not be broken down by school — meaning families in larger districts will have a hard time deciphering where and how serious potential outbreaks are, unless the school system chooses to add a higher level of transparency to their numbers.
Pike Road Schools, which started offering in-person instruction to about 60% of its nearly 1,900 students on Aug. 20, has posted its weekly case count, broken down by each of its four schools and whether the cases were among staff or students on the district's website.
During the first week of instruction:
- One student tested positive with COVID-19 at the elementary school, resulting in 12 students being placed in self-quarantine.
- One student tested positive at the intermediate school, resulting in six additional students being placed in self-quarantine.
- One staff member at the intermediate school, who hadn't been in contact with students or other staff for more than 15 minutes, tested positive.
Across the state, Mackey said districts who are offering in-person instruction haven't experienced high rates of positive cases, but have hundreds of students and staff forced into quarantine as a result of exposure. High school, he said, has proven to be a bigger issue than the younger grades.
In response, superintendents in Hartselle City and Cullman County are now looking to switch high-schoolers to a hybrid schedule, where their in-person instruction is on alternating schedules, Mackey said.
About 20 systems decided against having children return to school buildings for the first nine weeks, representing nearly 200,000 of the about 700,000 public school students across the state. All are expected to return to in-person instruction next month.
More: 'A new normal': Pike Road students return to school amid pandemic
"Based on our experiences the first few weeks, we think that’s a good idea. We need to get students back in the classroom as soon as possible, but we have to prioritize. The ones that need to be back in the classroom most is the younger ones," Mackey said.
Assessing students to see how large a gap was created in the past six months will be done once students are back in school — although for the families who choose to remain virtual, Mackey said the assessments are nearly impossible to conduct virtually.
"Our biggest concern is that there really is not an end in site when normal will return. It could be the spring semester, it could be next fall, it could be deep into next fall — depending when there is a vaccine available, and when people feel comfortable going back to normal routines," he said.
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Krista Johnson at kjohnson3@gannett.com.
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Six months into pandemic, educational inequalities likely to be wider for some - Montgomery Advertiser
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