Deweyville ISD issued the following announcement.
Mike Morath, Commissioner of Education, along with Representatives Huberty and Taylor, addressed school superintendents to provide information about what to expect for the upcoming school year. There was so much information that it may take a while to process some of the the implications of what was discussed, but I would like to provide a few highlights from my notes so we can begin to prepare for the fall.
The first major takeaway is that the government is investing a tremendous amount of time and resources on planning for continued distance learning. If the experts in charge believed we are going back to business as usual this fall, this is not where the focus would be. The state has come up with rules and funding formulas for all types of learning, spanning from in class, to hybrid systems, to delivery that for some groups would be entirely remote.The tone was not indicative of a normal return to school.
Next, it seems that schools will need to be prepared to deliver the curriculum remotely as well as in person from day one. Parents will not be forced to send their kids to school so you can bet that some will be staying home. We will be expected to keep the at-home kids and the in-class kids up to speed for accountability.
Which brings us to the next topic. Today the commissioner stressed that last year our focus was on providing instructional support but this year we will need to focus on providing instruction. Not only do we need to be ready to do distance learning, we need to be good enough at it that we can meet accountability standards. Accountability returns for the upcoming school year and we must teach all the required competencies. This year we have to be as good at teaching remotely as we are at teaching in the classroom. Commissioner Morath expressed the need to keep a health crisis from becoming a generational education crisis, and he is right. We can't lower our standards just because things have gotten weird. We've got to adapt and ensure these kids are not short changed academically. The call also stressed the discrepancies between the impact COVID has had on the education of rich kids versus poor kids. The lower income students have suffered more due to a lack of connectivity.
Reading between the lines, we see that a Representative was given the floor to address the connectivity issue. This tells me that there will be money tied to it, so I think schools that have not already done so should probably make room in the budget to ensure every household has a district supplied internet access device. Under the new system, the TEA will allow flexibility of curriculum plans via the waiver system. It was made clear that these are for the next school year only, and things will change again after this year. The Commissioner outlined two types of remote delivery and explained the funding implications for each.
Method A, Synchronous Instruction, involves teaching kids at home as though they are in your classroom. This is two way, real time instruction. You would take attendance and kids would need to be engaged for a certain number of minutes each day to qualify for full funding. PreK - grade 2 are not eligible for method A Method B, Asynchronous Instruction, is more self guided and there are four criteria for a student being counted as engaged for full funding. All grades are eligible for method B.
Regardless of the delivery method, we must cover all the TEKs and we will be testing and we will have accountability so the pressure is back on.
We will need to provide attestations that we are prepared to deliver instruction remotely and those will be available on 7/2.
Campuses will have to create plans addressing key elements.
There will be a grace period for ADA.
Funding formulas are now public on the TEA COVID-19 page.
For those of you who do not already know, the TEA is filing everything we learn in one handy and well organized website. If there is ever anything you want to know about doing school in COVID, it is either on this site, or it has not yet been decided. All the rules, formulas, guidance and communications are in one place.
Here's the link.
https://tea.texas.gov/texas-schools/health-safety-discipline/covid/coronavirus-covid-19-support-and-guidance
This is a lot to process but DISD Pirates are well accustomed to operating out of the norm. You are the best teachers on Earth and because of that, this is going to be an awesome year.
Original source can be found here.
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