This is a year of firsts, particularly for students, their parents and educators.
Wednesday marked another day of firsts as many, but not all, St. Landry Parish public school students returned to schools.
Superintendent Patrick Jenkins says the numbers aren’t nailed down yet, but this week about 10,000 out of nearly 13,000 students were returning to classes.
On Monday, Jenkins said enrollment, “last time I looked at the numbers,” was 12,771. About 3,000 students are enrolled for a virtual education.
The fifth to 12th grades students returning to the brick and mortar setting are doing so in a hybrid plan that has them on a schedule where the alternate between three days on campus and two days in virtual instruction. Students up to fourth grade are in a traditional setting.
Students have been educated virtually since Sept. 8.
The virtual and hybrid schedules are built around the COVID-19 pandemic that shut schools down in March.
“I think that we want to tell parents and community members we hear their concerns. We understand whatever concerns they may have whether it is going to face-to-face, whether it is going virtual or otherwise. They are very valid concerns,” Jenkins said in an interview at the School Board Resource Center in Opelousas.
“We understand what their fears may be with regard to COVID. This is still a pandemic and it is very serious,” he said.
“I’ve been affected personally just like many other people in St. Landry Parish. No one has died in my family, but my dad is 87 years old. He had COVID,” he said.
Information such as positive test rates and hospitalizations are guiding the school district’s reopening, he said.
“We just didn’t arbitrarily do this and I think that in August when we said that we were going to go virtual that we would look at data to determine what would be our next steps,” he said.
If the virus surges again it is possible the school district would return to virtual instruction, he said.
“We’ve kind of worked through some of the kinks — not perfectly. We still have kids that have not been able to logon and so forth, but we are still working through those things. So, if we have to go back then we will be better prepared the second time around then we were the first time around,” he said.
Online education has been available in previous years, but last year there were about 130 students enrolled in the virtual program. Most of the virtual students were doing credit and grade recovery, he said.
“We’ve always been interested in expanding it. This year, because of the pandemic, we did expand it,” he said.
The school district obtained a device for every student, but the reality on Sept. 8 when the students and teachers went online was the parish’s infrastructure was not up to the demand.
The infrastructure related to internet access in the parish turned out to be Achilles heel to virtual learning for the district’s 13,000 students.
“We’ve got places in the parish where kids just don’t have access. I can give them a hot spot, but if you can’t get a cell phone signal it is not going to work for you,” he said.
Additionally, “We have a lot of old computers in our schools that teachers are using and in order to do some of the things we want to do you need newer devices, and we are working hard to be able to do this,” he said.
Along with the technology infrastructure, Jenkins said professional development has been an ongoing issue.
“We’ve been working with our staff and they have done a tremendous job of getting up and running,” he said. “We want to thank them for their dedication, hard work and making sure that the virtual worked, but it took us awhile to train them.”
Some parents want the virtual education to operate simultaneously with the classroom instruction, he said.
“Technology-wise we are not ready for that and professional development-wise we aren’t ready as a district,” he said.
Funding for the technology has come from the CARES Act tied to the virus response and more than $800,000 has been spent by the school district.
“The good news is that we will be one-to-one with devices in St. Landry Parish going forward,” he said.
The device access may help with educating homebound students and all students at testing time, he said. Students will be able take devices home to do more lessons virtually.
“There are some opportunities as we grow technologically ... I think it is going to help us as a district,” he said.
The parish, as well as the state, has issues with internet access and that discussion began before the pandemic struck, he said.
“We have some challenges, but we are going to get better and we are going to better through CARES Act funding, federal funding, Title I, etc., and hopefully, sooner than later, the public will support us with something to be able to help us whether it is a sales tax, property tax ... to help facilitate more technology in our classrooms,” he said.
