City Schools of Decatur students will begin their re-entry into the classroom on Nov. 2, nearly eight months after they were sent home due to COVID-19. Like many districts nationwide, Decatur pupils will return in shifts, in this case over a three-week duration, with portions of all grades, K-12, back in the classroom by Nov. 16-20, the week before Thanksgiving.
CSD detailed its plans in an email sent to parents and staff late Friday afternoon. The district cited the recent DeKalb County decline in several critical areas including number of COVID cases per 100,000 persons, average number of positive tests, inpatient and ICU bed patient utilization, among others.
Reopening the city’s nine K-12 schools breaks down thusly:
Nov. 2-6 sees the return of grades pre-K, Kindergarten, 3, 6 and 9, Nov. 9-13 adds grades 1, 4, 7 and 10, with Nov. 16-20 bringing back grades 2,5, 8, 11 and 12.
This doesn’t, however, mean that all students are making the immediate transition from virtual learning to the classroom. During an interview with the AJC Friday, Superintendent David Dude said that many parents aren’t ready to send their children back to school. In fact, based on a survey of over 4,000 respondents, nearly half are keeping their students in virtual.
“When I say we’ll be full in-person [by the week prior to Thanksgiving], it’s for those who choose not to stay at home,” Dude said. "We have decided to skip what we call the hybrid phase, but right now it looks like we have an almost perfect 50-50 split [between those returning and those not].
“The difference between this and the hybrid,” he added, “is that the kids won’t be alternating back and forth—we’ll have half at school, half at home. The teachers will be doing what I call a concurrent lesson. They’ll be teaching a class in person while the virtual kids are tuned in and participating in that class. Even though they are at home the virtual students will be part of the classroom environment.”
Other highlights from Friday’s announcement:
*Beginning the week of Oct. 12 all faculty and staff will return to their respective schools.
*The same week also features the restarting of the birth to 3 program at College Heights and the Frasier Center at Decatur High.
*Also beginning Oct 12, the district’s adapted special education students will return to the classroom.
*Beginning Oct. 12 CSD will offer “district-sponsored learning pods,” a structured response to the informal pods parents have organized since school opened August 17. The size of individual pods hasn’t been determined and details are forthcoming on how to sign up and whether or not a fee’s involved.
“These will be small groups of students gathered together to do their virtual learning under the supervision of an adult,” Dude said. “I don’t know exactly how many we’ll have or where they’ll be located. The city has spaces that they’ve offered like at Legacy Park, and of course we have spaces at our schools. We have a feeling it will be fairly popular and there will be a lot of folks wanting to take advantage of that opportunity.”
*Because the one-week fall break (originally scheduled for next week) was eliminated, the holiday break has been extended from December 14 through Jan. 1.
For those students remaining virtual in November, Dude said they’ll be specific times set for when they can physically return to school. Students, in other words, can’t simply waltz into school any day they want and without notifying the central office.
Dude said that for now he has no specific goal for getting the entire student body back into the classrooms.
“I have been sharing with folks,” he said, “that we can’t stay virtual forever. I can’t tell you when we’ll stop hosting the virtual. But more than likely it will happen organically, where over time we will see a decrease of people keeping their children at home.”
About the Author
