Pittsburgh Public Schools students will not return to the classroom full-time in the upcoming school year, if they go back at all.
Students will have a choice of blended-instruction — both in-person and online — as well as an online-only option for the 2020-21 school year.
District administrators announced the schedule models Tuesday evening as they released their preliminary health and safety plan for the reopening of city schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The “All in to Reopen Our Schools” plan was built using more than 400 recommendations from community stakeholders in key areas, such as academic programming, school operations and family support.
“What happens today may look different in another week based on the guidelines we get from the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and our state government and our health department,” Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said. “Understand that plans may change … but understand that we’re focused and committed to making sure we provide the best, equitable educational opportunities for our students in a safe, healthy environment for faculty and staff, students and our community.”
District administrators are expected to share their final reopening recommendations at the school board’s education committee meeting Aug. 4, though plans could still change afterward.
The school board must approve the plan and send it to the state Department of Education before the academic year begins.
Administrators acknowledged that plans are likely to change over time.
The district said it will create a full-time online model for all students in the event that COVID-19 cases rise and schools are once again forced to shut down. Regardless of instruction model, the district is supplying every student with a device for online learning.
“We want you to understand that this is a fluid process, it’s not static,” Mr. Hamlet said. “It’s based on the recommendations we get, and they can potentially change everyday. We need to be able to pivot at a moment’s notice.”
Students who choose to participate in the blended model must adhere to social-distancing and face-covering guidelines when in school and on buses.
The district wants to split students into groups A and B, each of which would have assigned days to report to school for in-person instruction. That would allow the district to limit the number of students inside school buildings at any one time.
The district said students in group A would report to school on Mondays and Tuesdays and receive online instruction on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Group B would receive online instruction on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and report to school on Thursdays and Fridays. Schools would be open for cleaning on Wednesdays.
Meanwhile, nearly 700 students have already enrolled in the full-time online-only option, according to the district.
The district will use Schoology as its learning management system and Microsoft Teams for communication.
The online classes will feature live real-time instruction, according to Minika Jenkins, the district's chief academic officer.
“Students will engage in learning during their scheduled class time,” Ms. Jenkins said. For example, if a student has English from 7:30 a.m. to 8:20 a.m., they will have English class online from 7:30 to 8:20.
Student schedules, which should be mailed to households in mid-August as usual, will include arts and electives.
There will also be opportunities for instruction outside of the class schedule for students who need more support, she said.
“We also want to be able to provide various opportunities for students to engage in collaboration and communication,” Ms. Jenkins said. “That may be something that may not occur in a live, synchronous class. A teacher can do discussion boards, or provide a video for students to work on, or create a project where students can collaborate.”
Grading, Ms. Jenkins said, will reflect participation in online instruction and discussion. That is different from the district’s fourth-quarter grading policies during the 2019-20 school year when a student was expected to participate but could not fail a class.
“Many parents felt their students checked out as a result of not having a grading system,” she said. “So at this point as we move into the fall, we want to create that similar experience to the traditional environment.”
The district also said it wants to move the first day most student were expected to report to class from Aug. 26 to Aug. 31, which would allow for additional professional development time. Kindergarten classes would also start later, moving from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3.
“When it comes to professional development, it’s going to be key that we train our teachers and our principals and our faculty and staff on this new online environment and also on this blended environment,” Mr. Hamlet said.
The district continues to work on the plan and said it will place all 407 recommendations that stakeholders came up with on its website on Wednesday. Administrators pledged to hold more sessions on different aspects of the district’s reopening plan in the coming weeks.
Andrew Goldstein: agoldstein@post-gazette.com.
First Published: July 15, 2020, 12:59 a.m.
