The fate of schools in Arizona amid the ongoing corona- virus pandemic remains uncertain. State orders have postponed the start of in-person learning to at least Aug. 17, and individual school districts are still developing plans for what that learning will look like, taking into account public health guidelines.
However, all schools will be opening on their planned start date for online learning, regardless of what happens later involving in-person learning. For Camp Verde Unified School District, mandatory online learning will begin for all students on Monday, Aug. 3; for Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District, Wednesday, Aug. 5; Mingus Union High School District, Thursday, Aug. 6; and for Clarkdale-Jerome School District, Monday, Aug. 10.
School administrators stress that this fall’s online learning will be notably different from the impromptu attempt at remote learning that schools embarked on in the spring. All districts will be using Edgenuity, an online learning plat- form, along with Google Classroom, in order to provide instruction to students.
“We’re going to try to get as close to real or face-to-face as possible,” CVUSD Administrator-In-Charge Danny Howe said. “Last quarter, that was distance learning emergency. We weren’t prepared for that, because it just came along …. We were thrown in the deep end.”
“It’s about accountability of the entire system,” COCSD Superintendent Steve King said. “We have to create checks and balances in the system, because we don’t want it to be like what it was fourth quarter.”
The state of Arizona requires students to log into the online learning platform every day, and requires teachers to take attendance. Teachers at all schools will be providing lessons mostly in the morning, combining written and online lesson plans with some direct interaction with students via phone calls and video lessons.
Schools are nevertheless trying to ensure flexibility for students who will deal with the difficulty of having to find time to log into class amid what could be an uncertain schedule as they take class from home. Attendance is counted for logging in at any time during a day, which administrators concede will also mean some level of the honor system by relying on parents to ensure that their students are staying involved in their lessons.
However, schools are also trying to bolster the planned lessons with repeated and consistent direct communication by teachers with students.
“[Morning lessons are] a minimum. I am asking teachers, if they need to, to make those phone calls,” Howe said. CVUSD teachers will be at the district’s campus during work hours for the duration of a school day and are expected to use that time to stay in touch with students as they learn. “When we were working from home, teachers were reluctant to call, because they were having to use their own personal cell phone. I’ve told the site principals, ‘I want teachers reaching out from school’ …. It’s not going to be a phone call of, ‘What do you need help with?’ Here’s what the phone call is going to look like: ‘I’ve noticed that you haven’t done such and such… what can I do to help you get this done?’ … more proactive.”
MUHSD Superintendent Mike Westcott said that based on what he saw in spring, there will be lots of interaction.
“There was quite a bit of interest on the part of students to make that connection. I think that’s what’s really valuable about making that available — this isn’t just that Edgenuity platform, it’s not just an inter- face with the curriculum. They know they’ve got that support. They know that teachers are actually in the classroom.”
With the focus on individual learning that the online instruction component necessitates, educators expect that students will be moving at different speeds. Those who need more help beyond the morning organized lessons will be able to get extra help, and those who can move past the rest of the class will have more ease in doing so.”
School administrators say that they are trying to ensure that any online learning curriculum is able to transition to in-person, and back, as seamlessly as possible, to allow students to return to school in person when schools reopen, and also to allow parents that want to keep their children home out of caution to still stay up-to-date with classes.
“We look at it as mirroring the face-to-face,” Clarkdale-Jerome Superintendent Danny Brown said. “The distance learning and in-person marry each other, because we could go in and out of face-to-face school throughout the school year. So when we come back on campus, we’re still going to do a little bit of Google Classroom so our kids continue to have that ability to maneuver through the online stuff.”
Educators noted that training teachers and students in this kind of online curriculum could also lead to bene- fits even after school goes back to normal by allowing teachers to provide materials to students they can access at home more easily.
Even with all of this, educators stress that there is no way they can provide online learning at the same caliber as they would in-person. King pointed to the example of kindergarten classes, which are much less curriculum based and usually more focused on play and social interactions between the children, which become even harder to do remotely than academic lessons. He admitted that educators did not have answers for how they would deal with all the challenges and stressed the difficulty of what schools would be dealing with soon.
“What our teams are doing on a daily basis is the most difficult work I’ve ever experienced — the longest hours, the angriest people and the most complex, legal, financial, sociological, anthropological [issues]. It’s hard work. And I’m not complaining. But this is hard stuff. Hard decisions.”
