Concern that elementary aged students signed up for online learning are falling behind has forced Grady County school leaders to ask parents to send their children back to “face-to-face” school.
At the beginning of the school year, more than 300 kindergarten through fifth grade students were working online, but over time some have returned to the physical classroom. Now, the school system wants all of them back in the school building.
The school system sent an email last week asking that all K-5 students return to school by Monday, Nov. 2. That’s the day when the second half of fall semester, and a new grading period, begins.
“We can tell that they are not doing the assignments,” says Dr. Kermit Gilliard, superintendent of Grady County Schools. Gilliard says too many of the online students are not completing their computer work.
In a second email to parents, Gilliard stated, “We have concluded that the majority of our Virtual K-5 students are not being successful in the virtual environment and we are concerned about our student’s academic achievement.”
Gilliard says the effective development of reading and math skills is crucial for young students, and the one hour of virtual interaction teachers are able to provide for their online students is not the same as having lessons in a classroom from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Students with medical conditions, though, may still opt out of face-to-face learning by bringing a physician’s note to the school or Board of Education’s central office. Gilliard noted, however, that so far there has been no known transmission of COVID-19 between students at school here.
Meanwhile, the school system is continuing to research in hopes of finding a good virtual option for K-5 students, but, Gilliard stated, “at this time we have not found anything that we believe can take the place of a teacher.”
