HOUSTON – What will back-to-school look like?
Alief Independent School District Superintendent HD Chambers says school officials have decided to begin the school year online.
Chambers said he doesn’t want any student to lose out on their education because of the pandemic but the thought of how to bring students and teachers back to the classroom safely keeps him up at night.
“When you start bringing students into the classroom or staff members into a building, while students may not be as at risk to each other, they could be at risk when they bring it home,” Chambers said.
What resources and support will the school district give parents?
Students will have access to tablets and the internet to do their work from home.
Alief ISD has teamed up with area providers to get internet to families in need.
“We still have work to do, everyone has work to do, to make sure that the virtual teaching, the online teaching is still as productive and as efficient as it can be,” says Chambers.
When will students go back to in-person instruction?
Chambers is very open about the schools’ plans saying they are “fairly set in place.”
A lot of decisions will be based on health officials’ recommendations.
“How do we open up in a virtual environment much more prepared than we were in the spring and then how do we begin phasing students in for in person. I don’t really know just yet we’re going to have to rely on local health officials to give us guidance,” says Chambers.
What’s next?
Right now Alief school officials are working hard to figure out how to bring back students in the safest way possible.
The school district sent out a survey to parents back in June.
About 65 percent of parents said they were concerned about their kids going back to school.
There is a new survey out right now asking parents if they would prefer their kids stay home or go back to school.
They expect those results in the next few days.
