Florida Education Association offer
suggestions for school reopenings this Fall
Ashley Hunter
ECB Publishing, Inc.
On Friday, March 13, it was decided that due to COVID-19, Floridian K-12 students would stay out of school for an additional week, either through an “extended Spring Break” or to educate from home.
This extended break eventually led into a shut-down of school campuses for the remainder of the school year and students across the state finished out their 2019-2020 school year through virtual classrooms.
This widespread “socially distanced education” is unlike anything Floridian students, parents and teachers have experienced previously, and understandably, many are hoping that when the Fall semester returns for the 2020-2021 school year, campuses will reopen.
In May, the Reopen Florida Task Force, led by several Floridian business owners and politicians, released a 35-page report containing their recommendations for reopening the state. Within that report, the Task Force agreed with educational professionals who are pushing for campus reopenings in the Fall, but the report was vague on how schools should resume on-campus activities.
In response, the Florida Education Association (FEA) stated that they were disappointed with the task force's suggestions for reopening schools, and in early June the FEA offered their own 17-page report, with the association's recommendations for reopening Florida schools.
While the Reopen Florida Task Force may not accept the FEA's suggestions, the report still bears paying attention to.
Amongst those suggestions, the FEA is pushing for frequent coronavirus testing as well as suspension of emergency drills within schools.
Some of the association's recommendations include:
• Reconfiguration of classrooms to allow social-distancing (no closer than six-feet apart) within individual rooms.
• School employees who have a pre-existing vulnerability to COVID-19 should be allowed to work remotely.
• Daily sanitization of all school facilities.
• Continue to follow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines on maximum gathering sizes.
• Provide teachers and school staff with access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and disinfectants, while also providing education on how to properly use the equipment.
• Screen students and staff members who appear symptomatic for COVID-19, also separate those individuals from the rest of the school population during testing.
• Expand school clinic capabilities by providing triage and isolation areas for students and staff members that appear symptomatic.
• Encourage alternative calendars that allow students to stay physically distance at the schools. Employ split schedules, smaller classroom sizes, hybrid education models and staggered mealtimes in the cafeteria.
• Suspend the current system of standardized tests, school grades and VAM scores.
• Suspend the requirements for school fire drills, active shooter drills and all other planned emergency drills. The FEA says these “disrupt student learning” and could “lead to large gatherings of students and staff.”
• Modify the attendance requirements. Instead of requiring students to “check-in” and be physically present at the school, hold students to the expectation of completing their work, rather than physically attending school.
• Provide a more robust digital learning.
Among these suggestions, the FEA suggests that school districts should continue school feeding programs, refuse to put arts programs under the knife despite budget cuts, should allow flexible assignments and deadlines and also reduce the amount of work required of students who are easily overwhelmed.
“As a nation, we have suffered a collective trauma. Even for adults, these have been difficult times to understand to process. That is true even more so for the students we serve,” the FEA wrote in their report. “Prolonged physical distancing, death and illness in our families and communities and economic dislocations, will leave many students and faculty with ongoing trauma and mental health issues and it is incumbent on us to meet their needs now more than ever.”
The FEA report encourages school districts and the State of Florida to meet their students' mental health needs by providing additional funding for mental health services, risk and trauma assessments and providing more support for students and staff.
Overall, the FEA report made it clear that they are in support of reopening school campuses this Fall – but only if the environment is made safe for everyone on campus.
“Educators have made it clear they desire nothing more than to return to schools and be with their students in person again,” wrote the FEA. “But doing so means that there must be safeguards in place to ensure that the simple act of returning to work does not jeopardize their health.”
To view the entire report issued by the FEA, visit feaweb.org.