Covid ​“Virtual Academy” In Works

New Haven Public Schools are working on a more structured way to teach quarantining kids this academic year and going forward.

The idea of a virtual academy was proposed by members of the Board of Education (BOE) during its regular biweekly meeting Monday.

As of Tuesday NHPS has 103 students in quarantine. The board was given an update about what quarantined student instruction looks like and was met with concerns from board members about the cut in students’ live instruction time.

The schools superintendent’s team said the district is working to offer a ​“rudimentary version” of a virtual academy for high schoolers to start as soon as next month.

Instructional Superintendent Paul Whyte said the district is working on an instruction experience with elements of a virtual academy for high school students. A ​“rudimentary version” of a virtual credit recovery program that combines synchronous, asynchronous, and live support will be offered to high schoolers starting in October, Whyte said.

“As a state, virtual academies are to be an option for high school students starting in the 2022 – 2023 year,” Whyte added.

BOE member Larry Conaway said New Haven should lead the state in piloting a ​“pure virtual academy” for quarantined and homebound students and teachers who ​“did not want to go back in the buildings but are willing to teach from the screen.”

“It’s really not outside the box. It’s 21st-century thinking,” Conaway said.

BOE student rep Anthony Fiore agreed that a virtual academy would be helpful to students. ​“The more opportunities and more options that we give student in terms of how we teach them, and how we learn I think is very important,” he said.

Student Bots & Synchronous Hybrid Classrooms?

Meanwhile, BOE members Tamiko Jackson-McArthur and Darnell Goldson raised concerns over the district’s delayed planning for quarantined and homebound students’ instruction this school year. Jackson-McArthur has asked about remote instruction plans for homebound and quarantined students during BOE meetings in the past leading up to the start of the school year.

“I was a little surprised to hear that as of last week that the admini stration was working on a plan. I thought we had a plan,” Goldson said.

During Monday’s meeting Jackson-McArthur painted a picture of schools with ​“student bots” like a The Jetsons episode — a hybrid option for students to get synchronous instruction while ​“at home and in school.”

Director of Student Services Typhanie Jackson updated the board with details of the current remote learning requirements for students who are sent home to quarantine.

While quarantined, K‑6 students are required to log onto Google Classroom during school hours to do asynchronous classwork during the school day provided by their classroom teacher. For an additional two hours after school, students are provided with live instruction from a certified teacher working overtime.

During the 10 hours of live instruction a week for two weeks with a certified teacher, the students are given virtual instruction to their classwork. High school students use Khan Academy, Jackson said.

Three weeks into the school year, the district has been hearing positive feedback from parents about the after-school instruction service, Jackson said.

Based on information gathered from contact tracing and a student’s test results, the quarantine maximum so far has been two weeks.

Goldson raised concerns about students’ live instruction time being cut almost in half due to quarantining. While a normal school day is 6.5 hours, students are in classes for about four hours a day and 20 hours a week. While quarantined live instruction time is cut to 10 hours a week.

“A lot of these students already had a loss of learning from last year, and now they’re additionally losing two hours a day in instruction now,” Goldson said. ​“It’s not like they’re skipping school or like it’s their fault or their parents’ fault.”

Superintendent Iline Tracey said the live instruction time is limited to two hours as of now due to a shortage of teachers and provisions in the teacher contract.

“We cannot just have students signing into teachers’ classroom. That would be a union situation,” Tracey said.

Tracey attributed the shortage to New Haven’s low wages for starting teachers compared to higher wages in neighboring districts. ​“Resignations. Resignations. Resignations. And those are some of the things happening,” Tracey said. ​“New Haven, Waterbury, Hartford, Bridgeport, the major urban centers are losing teachers.”

Only in the circumstance of an entire classroom being closed due to an outbreak may teachers be required to switch to remote instruction.

Tracey added that the district is exploring the option of hiring retired teachers to work virtually with quarantined students for more time during the school day.

Jackson-McArthur said she has heard about differing experiences from parents about the remote instruction schools are requiring for quarantined students.

“With the [federal pandemic relief] money that we received we could have been a lot more proactive in offering a better experience for the children that we knew would be quarantined,” Jackson-McArthur said.

During the summer Jackson-McArthur requested that the district find a way to offer synchronous instruction for students not in-person.

“What we’re doing during quarantine is backwards,” she said. ​“Picking up work from google classroom is not the way that new haven should be leading.”

Paging Frederick Douglass

Tracey agreed with the board members’ concerns. She said the district must first deal with the NHPS shortage of teachers. ​“We still have classrooms without teachers as we speak,” she said.

“The plan I understand is not maybe what we would call the best made plan. However, there is a plan,” Tracey said.

BOE member Edward Joyner suggested the district look into pushing the state delegation to work on changing the requirements and ​“restrictive standards” for teacher certification.

“Those pencil and paper test don’t always determine who would be a good teacher,” he said in response to the teacher shortage.

“If you asked James Baldwin to teach a class on literature, he wouldn’t be able to do that, because he didn’t have a college degree. Nor did Richard Wright. If you asked Frederick Douglass to teach a class on social protest, he couldn’t do that either, because he didn’t have a high school [degree]. There are some people that are so bright and accomplished in their fields that they deserve an opportunity to bring those gifts to the classroom,” Joyner said.