Spring break lasted longer than usual due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the vacation is over for Columbia County’s public school students — even if many of them still feel like they’re off the hook.
The School District resumed classes on Monday, ending a two-week break, though students didn’t have to wake up early to catch the bus, wait for bells to ring or stare at a whiteboard from their desks. With school buildings still under a statewide partial shutdown order, students are continuing their education through a distance-learning experiment that will require them to shoulder more responsibility for their own schedules, said Columbia County Superintendent Lex Carswell.
“Now kids are going to have to get up and get a routine started,” Carswell said. “It’s kind of like all our students have gone off to college.”
As it stands, the state’s shutdown order is set to expire May 1, at which point in-person classes could be resumed. The mandate could be extended beyond that date, however.
School employees are still allowed in the buildings — except at Niblack, which local officials closed down entirely after an employee there tested positive for Covid-19.
The distance-learning program is designed to be low-tech. It’s based on pen-and-paper packets, though high school students have the option of using Google Classroom if they wish.
At Columbia High School late Monday morning, cars driven by parents and older students lined up in droves to pick up packets, which the district also offered to send through email.
“Here we go, that 11-to-12 rush,” CHS Principal Trey Hosford told staffers, who were swamped with vehicles waiting outside.
Stacks of coursework, divided by subject, lined several desks in the administrative building’s entrance hallway.
The high school’s employees had to go through students’ schedules and pick out assignments and reading material from the right stacks in order to assemble each packet.
Between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m., staffers had distributed the distance-learning kits to 359 vehicles.
“One-hundred-and-twelve just in the last hour,” Hosford said around noon.
The stream of traffic started to die down around lunchtime, giving the employees a chance to breathe.
“Look at that,” Hosford said. “An empty parking lot.”
The day, still far from over, would end with a total of 738 vehicles served.
It was a similar scene at the county’s other public schools, Carswell said, except for Niblack Elementary — which used Richardson Community Center as a packet distribution site.
“We were crowded everywhere, but that’s exactly what we want,” he said. “We want the kids to start getting engaged.”
The district signed a six-month lease on 13 additional copy machines so that schools could produce the packets in time for classes to start back this week.
“We’re building this airplane as we fly it,” Carswell said.
Teachers are back at work, too, Carswell said. Some decided to be physically present at the school, but it’s not required.
“We’re leaving that up to them,” Carswell said. “If they want to stay at home and work diligently from there, they can.”
Either way, faculty members will be available to assist students remotely.
Since K-12 students aren’t typically used to this degree of self-management, Carswell said the district will have to figure out how to nudge them along.
“Students can’t procrastinate,” Carswell said. “The biggest challenge will be getting everybody to get into a daily routine of doing their academic work.”
“We don’t know exactly how to do that yet,” he added. “But communication will be key.”
In-person classes were originally scheduled to resume April 15. But on Monday afternoon, Carswell announced that the Florida Department of Education on Monday had decided to push the date back to May 1.
The longer this pandemic drags on and prevents in-person classes, the harder it will be for schools to return to normalcy. Carswell said the disruption has been minimal so far.
“We’re doing the best we can, and people are for the most part pleased with the effort,” he said.