Virtual woes confound School District of Manatee County

Denise Dienna, a fourth grade teacher at Robert E. Willis Elementary School, stood outside her car July 14 with a sign that said:

“I want to see my students. My kids want to be in class. We can’t do that until the community wears their masks! Keep schools online until community spread stops.”

Dienna taped the sign to her car before jumping in the vehicle and joining at least 70 other cars filled with parents, teachers and students who were advocating for the School District of Manatee County to start the school year with everyone doing e-learning.

The caravan drove in a loop around the district’s School Support Center downtown where the school board was getting ready to have its special meeting to vote on the district’s reopening plan.

“Instead of spending a summer getting ready, we are spending the summer protesting because we’re fighting for our lives here,” Dienna said. “I just wish the community would have done the right thing. … The community and the government should have come together to combat COVID-19 and bring the numbers down.”

Although some teachers and parents want school to start with everyone doing e-learning, district Superintendent Cynthia Saunders told board members that simply was not an option at this time.

Unlike in March when the district came up with an emergency plan to move everyone online as a result of the Gov. Ron DeSantis shutting schools due to COVID-19, Saunders said the district would need more time to assess the needs of students, including how many devices are needed and providing access to internet to everyone.

“We are now in a new year with new students, and students have completely different teachers than they had last year,” Saunders said. “We would not know which students are in need of internet, which students are in need of devices, and it’s a lot more challenging to get that information. … Our teachers in the fourth quarter had already established relationships with students and knew their needs and accommodations. Brand new teachers do not even know their students yet.”

The district will need time to connect with new families to the district as well.

When schools closed in March, Spectrum, an internet provider, offered free internet service, which gave a majority of Manatee County, giving many of the district’s students access to internet. That is no longer an option.

The district wired 25 buses with Wi-Fi to be dispersed throughout the county to provide internet, but those buses will be in circulation for transportation routes.

When students are back in the classroom, Saunders said teachers and staff will assess the educational gaps and losses of their students as well as their needs in terms of internet access, devices and supports.

Saunders said it could take the district a couple weeks up to a month to assess the needs of the more than 50,000 students expected to be in the district this year.

“We also know that some students trickle in, move around that time of the school year,” she said. “Not everyone starts day one of the school year, but by Labor Day I certainly would imagine that we would have the beginning stages of that assessment.”

Teachers want to be back in their classrooms with their students, but some are nervous with the rising cases of COVID-19.

With a second grader at Gene Witt Elementary School, a sixth grader at R. Dan Nolan Middle School and a senior at Lakewood Ranch High, Dienna worries that she and her children being back at school would pose a risk to her husband, Matthew, who is high-risk with severe asthma.

“Let’s get the numbers down, and let’s come back properly,” she said.

Jodi McCoy, a pre-K teacher at Braden River Elementary School, urges the district to start with e-learning for the health and safety of her students and colleagues.

“If one person dies because we had to open our schools, it would be crushing to all of us whether we know the person or not,” McCoy said. “I want to go back, but not if there’s a chance someone’s life could be taken.”