City Schools of Decatur ended its year (for students) last Friday, but for weeks Superintendent David Dude has been trying to resolve what school will look like in 2020-21.
He’s fairly certain Decatur schools will open on time, August 4. Earlier this month he proposed three potential scenarios for starting the year: 1) A “normal” opening with students returning to the classroom; 2) A hybrid, where students report to their classroom every other day, and every other day take online instruction; 3) Full online instruction, or the way school was taught the last two months of 2019-20.
During a recent interview with the AJC, Dude pointed out he’s getting plenty of help in making these decisions. He also discussed potential improvements to online instruction if the district has to go in that direction next year. Dude’s responses have been edited for clarity and space considerations.
AJC: Beside yourself, who’s involved in deciding how schools will open next year?
Dude: “We have a lot of highly educated people with great health expertise who are community members and parents. We have epidemiologists, CDC employees, Emory doctors, doctors and nurses working in emergency rooms or other areas treating coronavirus patients. They’ve been very helpful so far. But this summer we’ll convene a group of those folks and look at the current state of affairs and make a decision as to what we can do on starting the school year. That’s assuming we have the option to open.
“We haven’t set a date for making a decision, but it will probably be a month or more before we announce something. We will keep updating the community as we know more, but at some point we need to have some certainty. We will do it as soon as we feel we have sufficient information to be able to make a decision.”
How can you improve online instruction?
“Speaking anecdotally, it makes a huge difference with my kids when they have face-to-face interaction, when they’re able to log in and see all their classmates and connect with their teachers through a video chat. It makes a big difference in their mental health as well as in their motivation in getting things done when they know their teacher really is there.”
What can you do, regarding online instruction, to decrease parental stress?
“I’ve asked my team (various staffers) to look at ways to help parents better track what’s been assigned to their kids. I think we’ve had a lot teachers come up with great systems on assigning work and how they communicate it. But the problem is there are several different systems. In my case, for instance, with three kids, it’s not easy to track everything they are doing and the status of it.
“So that’s something I’d like to improve on if we have to do this again, to make it as easy as possible for parents to know what exactly their kids need to be working on, when is it due, has it been completed and things like that.”
Haven’t you used your substitute teachers to assist families?
“Yes, and we want to do more of that. For instance, maybe a family needs some help monitoring their child’s work. So we can assign a substitute teacher to that family. [The substitute] can call and check in on the student, and provide motivation, and make sure [the student knows] what they’re supposed to be doing. We are trying to think of ways that we can help support families. There are a lot of different situations out there and it can be very difficult to keep the kids going at a time like this.”
