NORFOLK, Va. — With back to school looking a lot different this year, parents across Hampton Roads have expressed concern about their children’s education.
With most schools beginning the new school year virtually, some are worried their children won’t receive a quality education.
Kaydee Kelly, a mother of three in Norfolk, is one of them. Her son, Thomas, will begin 1st grade virtually with Norfolk Public Schools.
“It’s very hard to get him to focus, which is one of my biggest worries for this year now that everything’s gonna be online,” said Kelly.
A majority of school districts across Virginia will use the online learning platform Virtual Virginia for the start of the school year. In Hampton Roads, Norfolk Public Schools, Chesapeake Public Schools, and Portsmouth Public Schools all plan to use Virtual Virginia in some capacity.
Kelly found herself in a challenging situation when the coronavirus pandemic forced the last school year to end abruptly. Suddenly, she was home trying to home school her son while caring for her two young daughters.
All of this, while trying to run her photography business. Kelly said her business hit a roadblock when she had to care for her children at home five days a week.
“Trying to manage all of them at one time was really tough,” said Kelly. “Harder than being alone while husband was deployed.”
Now, she’s worried about the school year ahead.
“I don’t want him to lose this year because he doesn’t wanna focus on a computer,” said Kelly. “It’s not anyone's fault, that’s my biggest concern; he craves the social aspect of school so I don’t know how he's gonna do in front of a computer.”
Brian Mott, the executive director of Virtual Virginia, said the platform is fully equipped with content for the school year and they continue to make improvements. Mott said they’ve had to work at a tremendously rapid speed to prepare the platform during a time when people across the entire state are relying on it to educate children.
“Honestly, I know there’s gonna be a lot of challenges this year, but there’s also a lot of opportunity to do things,” said Mott. “Even though it’s differently, it’ll be done more effectively.”
Virtual Virginia provides K-12 courses for both asynchronous and synchronous learning. The platform features interactive content, including videos and text images.
One of the concerns parents like Kelly and teachers have expressed is the issue of students falling behind.
Mott said the program has built-in accountability features.
“You can see through this platform what students are doing, when they’re logging, how long they’re doing it. If they started an assignment, if they turned it in. All that data, it’s all in one place,” said Mott. “We know when they’re live with us online, but there’s also resources built in if we record a session and they’re unable to attend, we can see if they watched it and how long they watched it.”
Mott said that information is accessible to teachers. He said it may help teachers hold students and parents accountable to ensure they stay on track.
As of August 14, 124 out of 132 school districts in Virginia were registered to use Virtual Virginia in some capacity this fall.
“Through all that’s going on right now, everybody is advocating for students. Parents, guardians, school teachers, I think that’s something to embrace right now,” said Mott. “It’s all about how we approach it going forward that will make the big difference.”
Kelly is hoping her son will have the chance to complete his school work in a pod with a few other students his age. Her youngest children will go to daycare, allowing her to keep her small business going.
Still, she has her fingers crossed and hopes everything will work out this school year.
“I worry for the kids a lot, I worry for the teachers. It’s a struggle for them,” said Kelly. “Kids enjoy hands-on learning and they’re not gonna get a lot of that this year, and I’m hoping for consistency.”
There’s no doubt, the start of a new school year can be stressful.
This year especially, the unknowns are difficult for parents everywhere to overcome.