Expect Broward schools to stay online for rest of the school year, superintendent says

Broadcast from his home, Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie in a video address Friday night summed up the school district’s first week of online learning — and predicted this would be the new norm for the rest of the school year.

“We recognize that the pandemic will continue to grow and anticipate more challenging conditions emerging over the next several weeks,” he said. “Consequently, it is reasonable for all of us to plan for continuing distance learning through the end of the school year,” he said.

Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran this week advised the state’s superintendents to extend school closures from April 15 to May 1. South Florida superintendents, including Runcie, followed the recommendation.

Runcie made a similar comment to Rep. Shevrin Jones, D-West Park, during a Facebook live event on March 25.

“My belief is that we are going to go until the end of the school year in using this virtual format, and it may even go longer,” Runcie said, according to CBSMiami.

On Monday, Miami Superintendent Alberto Carvalho tweeted, “We’re reevaluating current conditions...a more realistic scenario would be that schools won’t reopen until sometime in May.”

Broward County Public Schools had a rocky start to online learning on Monday. By 10 a.m., automated phone calls and district-wide emails were sent notifying families of the platform outages. Students were asked to try logging on later.

Yet Runcie said Friday that the first week as a whole was a success, with 15,000 teachers and 222,000 students participating in remote online learning daily.

“Despite a challenging first day, 96% of students signed in this week, and 98% of our teachers published Canvas courses,” he said.

Overall, 82,000 laptops were distributed to students in need, according to Runcie, and 85,000 meals were served this week at 47 feeding sites. The district is adding four more middle schools as food distribution sites.

Runcie reminded families that Monday begins the start of the fourth quarter, and some courses will be unavailable online due to updates and preparations. He also said the district has a new online mindfulness program for students and parents.

This story was originally published April 4, 2020 at 2:27 PM.