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School Superintendent Is Excited For A Return To Class. But It’s A Cautious Optimism Due To COVID-19.

Escambia County School Superintendent Tim Smith is excited about the first day of school on Wednesday. But it’s really more of a cautious optimism as COVID-19 looms over the local community as tens of thousands of students return.

“I hope these COVID metrics show declines here very soon because it’s important for us to get out of the gate quickly and strongly in our return to a brick and mortar setting on a full-time basis,” Smith told NorthEscambia.com “I really hope the kids are excited and have a good positive start.”

“I think that’s important with our teachers too. I hope they feel ready and prepared. I hope just everybody in the schools is excited. I think with COVID we just have to be very flexible. It’s a fluid condition that exists, and we need to make sure we’re staying in compliance with the guidelines provided by the medical experts. In this case our guidelines that we’re following are those put out by the Florida Health Department and the Florida Department of Education.”

Those guidelines, released just last Friday, do not include a mask mandate, giving parents or guardians the opportunity to opt out their student from wearing a face covering. There will be a return to normal activities such as field trips, and volunteers will be allowed back on campuses. Athletic events and extracurricular activities such as band and choral concerts will occur without seating capacity limits. [Read the complete policy...]

“It’s just important I think for us to get to a level of functionality where we’re holding class, kids are able to think and concentrate, and engage in learning. That’s going to be our goal is to provide that type of environment and of course safety is always,  always important for us.”

“If we have a student who is showing symptoms, we will quickly, quickly have them attended to, and we will need family to come pick that student up,” Smith said. “One of the important things is if the student is showing symptoms is to not come to school. I think our parents did a great job with that (last year). I think those steps, that quick reaction to a student showing symptoms, is a key piece. I think what helped us a lot last year was that quick and responsive set of protocols that we had. Our principals were able to call and work with our health coordinator and her team as she frequently communicated with the Department of Health.”

For students that are required to quarantine, in some cases up to 10 days, they will be able to continue the learning process at home, but it will be different from last year.

“We don’t have the remote blended platform like we did last year where you have a teacher with both students in class and online,” Smith said. “We really didn’t anticipate having to work with that virus the whole year.”

“That whole blended remote platform was designed for flexibility because if you were taking let’s say you’re chemistry class and you are at home you still had the same teacher in the same course section so you could just come right back. That sunsetted with the end of the executive order from the commissioner of education and the governor.”

The Escambia Virtual School, with registration open through August 31, allows a student to have an online environment for the full year. But for a student that is out a few days to over a week due to a required COVID-19 quarantine, there is no such established remote learning mechanism in place this school year.

But education will go on, Smith said.

“That’s where our amazing teachers will step up, and they will do great work on making the lesson and the activities at home blended,” Smith said. “That’s not always easy to do, but that’s the goal so there can be a number of steps that are taken. You can use some electronic platforms that have lesson components built in, and the students can just go through those lesson components. You can do electronic activities where the kids go in and pull their work. We may even have some teachers post videos, or who do all kinds of things.”

“That is the charge — to make it as connected as possible, and our teachers will be very creative,” Smith said.