Thousands of students and teachers return to Miami classrooms as COVID concerns linger
More than 22,000 students across the nation’s fourth-largest school district returned to classrooms Monday morning for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic upended life in the spring, forcing teachers and pupils in Miami-Dade County Public Schools to teach and learn online from home.
Students in pre-K, kindergarten and first grade, as well as students with disabilities on a modified curriculum, were part of the first wave in the district’s staggered reopening plan. Another 40,000 students, including all elementary students plus sixth, ninth and 10th-graders, are expected to return Wednesday. By Friday, all students whose parents opted for in-person learning on a summer survey will be back in school.
The students donned colorful face masks. Typical first-day gifts for teachers were accompanied by hallmarks of the new COVID reality: disinfectant wipes. Parents kept social distance as they said goodbye to their little ones outside schools. Teachers and administrators outfitted in protective gear greeted families.
Families who opted to send their kids to the classroom cited nonexistent or unreliable internet access at home, a desire for their kids to socialize with their peers, and the inability for working parents and caretakers to assume the role of teachers.
Even with the risk of children carrying the virus home, family members took that chance.
“The truth is, I am 77, and it is dangerous if he gets sick,” said Yvonne Brooker, who walked her grandson Makai to his first day of kindergarten at Carrie P. Meek K-8 school in Westview in northwest Miami-Dade. “But, he has to be with other children.”
She carried her baby grandson Avery Walker while dropping his brother off. Brooker is in the high-risk age group for COVID-19, and though she is concerned, she said it’s time Makai spends time with his peers.
Monday morning, Makai couldn’t wait to get inside.
“He’s so anxious, he couldn’t eat,” Brooker said.
‘A flawless return’
Miami-Dade School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said he saw nothing but smiling faces as he visited schools across the county.
In front of Andrea Castillo Preparatory Academy, a new K8 school in Doral, Carvalho said 50% of students who were permitted to return Monday are continuing to learn from home.
“We have not detected any issues whatsoever,” he said, from technology to teacher absences. If there was any issue, some students with special needs who are not on a modified schedule showed up to school when they weren’t expected to return until a later date.
Several teachers from Miami Beach to Miami Lakes reported the district’s portal was down on Monday. Carvalho later said that some issues were identified at seven or eight schools but the problem was “localized.”
As for concerns about air quality and ventilation, he said 1,000 air-filtration systems were installed in windowless schools. He said no problems were reported from schools on Monday morning.
Carvalho said he braced for issues with the weather, staffing and tech glitches. But “every single teacher” who was due to be in school showed up.
He said he prepared for 1,000 teacher absences and had 300 non-school site and employees with college degrees on standby, but the district did not need to deploy them.
Carvalho said 700 teachers are working from home on a medical exemption under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and 75 more applications are in the pipeline. He said there have been 25 teacher retirements compared to 17 last year.
“It seems like it was a flawless return,” he said.
State education officials and the School Board debated the reopening date, settling on Monday after several votes and contending with the threat of budget shortfalls. Administrators and teachers tackled the tall order of preparing classrooms for students again, rearranging indoor spaces to ensure social distancing, installing air filters and sending nurses and “medically trained staff” to each school. Each student was expected to receive a thermometer.
Teachers and parents questioned the school system’s readiness in recent days, raising concerns over ventilation, student-teacher ratios, sanitation supplies and masks. District officials insisted the schools are ready.
Schools reopened as South Florida continues to grapple with the novel coronavirus. As of Sunday, Miami-Dade County’s daily positive test rate had been over 5% four of the previous seven days.
Complaints over teaching in classroom, and online
Many teachers said they felt as if they did not have a choice to teach only in-person students or online students, feeling pressure to teach both at the same time.
When asked about the “avalanche” of complaints received by the United Teachers of Dade, the teachers’ union, Carvalho bristled.
“If I were to respond to everything I’ve seen posted by a lot of folks, I would spend all day,” he said. “No teacher in Miami-Dade is compelled to teach one modality.”
Carvalho said there are teachers, called “singletons,” who are the only teacher at a school who teaches one specific class. In those cases, the district’s letter of understanding with UTD says that teachers are allowed to teach all their students virtually or both at the same time.
Carvalho said teachers in advanced classes face the same “virtually impossible” issue. He said many teachers asked for their classes not to be split up and agreed to teaching dual modalities simultaneously.
UTD president Karla Hernandez-Mats said she heard reports that Miami Jackson Senior High had assigned all teachers to teach in person and remotely simultaneously.
“There are a lot of teachers that are saying that they are being coerced and intimidated and they don’t want us to intervene,” she said. “They don’t want us to intervene because they fear retaliation.”
Miami Jackson Senior High’s principal did not return requests for comment.
The United Teachers of Dade sent an email to all principals Monday night, touching on making online teachers teach from the classroom, not giving a choice for teaching dual modalities, and rules for not wearing a mask.
“I would like to say that this is a misunderstanding with individual principals, but the pervasive nature of the problems and the various documentation we have received suggests that schools have been directed ... to ignore/misapply key components of the [agreement between the union and schools to reopen schools.]
Issues at Sunset Elementary
Sunset Elementary parents received an email at 11:59 a.m. Saturday from principal Marlene Leyte-Vidal that said their child’s class assignment changed to keep students in the same language program together, mixing virtual and in-person students. She wrote that the sudden change was due to families requesting for their child to stay learning online.
“In these classrooms, teachers will be implementing lessons with students Zooming in to the live session from home while others participate from the classroom,” Leyte-Vidal wrote. “This dual-modality classroom environment allows us to accommodate the requests of families while adhering to COVID-19 related guidelines and health protocols.”
Sunset Elementary is a magnet school on the border of Coral Gables where students choose to learn Spanish, French or German.
The parents of more than 80 students who opted for My School Online, the district’s online learning option, sent a response Sunday to the school’s administration. They complained of the sudden change, pointed out that language groups were still mixed and expressed concern over the dual-modality setup.
Monique Lavender Greenberg said her daughter, a first-grader new to Sunset, loved her teacher and her interactive teaching style. But on Friday, her daughter was assigned to a new teacher.
On Monday, Greenberg said her daughter’s new teacher was doing her best, but it was hard to hear the teacher if she walked away from her computer. When the teacher played a video for the whole class, the audio in the classroom was muffled.
For her daughter’s Spanish class, Greenberg said the teacher was off the screen for 20 minutes. Later, the teacher turned the webcam to the class and Greenberg saw students with masks below their noses.
“My daughter said, ‘Mommy, maybe I should go back to school in person even though it’s not as safe because then they would pay more attention to me,’” Greenberg said. “For my kid to not be a priority as much as anyone else is awful.”
Leyte-Vidal did not respond to requests for comment.
First day away from parents
For kindergartners, the first day of school came with the usual emotional goodbyes, but tears slid down faces covered by multi-colored masks. Spread out on the sidewalk at Redland Elementary in South Miami-Dade, relatives stood close to their young ones, but several feet away from others.
“I tell her every day: Wear your mask, my dear, wear your mask and you’ll be safe,” said Pedro Bayate, 71, who dropped off his 5-year-old granddaughter Ashlyn Ramon for her first day at kindergarten.
For some parents, they had little choice but to send their children to school so they could learn uninterrupted.
“I didn’t have internet at home so online school was impossible,” said Norberta Andablos, 36, who opted for in-person schooling for her 5-year-old son Roger.
“There’s a pandemic and people are dying so I have to choose to constantly remind myself — and him — that God is in control,” she said.
At Carrie P. Meek K-8, Joy Peters said the reason she is sending her 6-year-old son Charles back to in-person class is twofold.
“I think it’s easier for him to stay focused, but also, I have to go back to work eventually,” Peters said. “I don’t have anyone to watch him. It’s just me.”
Peters has been working from home at U.S. Medical Supplies and has been able to help Charles with his online classes. But it’s been challenging, she said.
“Especially for him being in first grade, for him to focus,” Peters said. “And the teacher has other kids whose parents aren’t there, so we have to wait while they get the other kid’s online.”
At the end of the day, Charles told his mom that he had a great first day and couldn’t wait to go back.
“I asked him if wearing the mask all day bothered him, and he said, ‘No Mommy, not at all,’” Peters said. “I must admit I was extremely nervous sending him back to school, but now I feel a little bit at ease now.”
That said, Peters is a little worried about what will happen later in the week when the children in the older classes return.
“I have a fifth-grader starting Wednesday, so we will see how that goes,” she said.
For Frantasha Williams, the decision for her 6-year-old daughter to return came down to the way she learns best.
“She’s an on-hand student,” her mother said. “She has to be in the classroom.”
Flowers and wipes for teachers
In Coral Gables, all seemed well at Henry S. West Laboratory School.
Principal Barbara Soto Pujadas stood out in front of the school early, ready to welcome back students. Her maintenance crew put out signs in front of both entrances.
“We are #WestLabUnited” read one sign in front of the drop-off for students whose last names started with M-Z. “We missed you” greeted last names A through L.
Soto Pujadas declined to say how many students were expected to return for in-person learning, but said it was “a high percentage.”
The school is located in School Board District 6, which had 56% of students wishing to return to school, more than any other district. It has been reported that magnet schools like West Lab are expecting percentages of up to 80% wanting to return to school.
“We just expect it to be business as usual,” Soto Pujadas said. “We’re happy to have all hands on deck.”
Juana Schaugg dropped off her first-grader, Sarah, 6, with wipes to give to her teacher.
Schaugg said her daughter got headaches from the constant hours of screen time during online learning, which began Aug. 31.
“I think they don’t learn well,” Schaugg said. “Someone’s late, there’s issues on Zoom. Kids get bored. They get distracted. We are very happy to be back.”
Her 8- and 10-year-old head back to school on Wednesday.
One teacher donning a United Teachers of Dade mask and a face shield parked in front of the school and hurried in.
“I’m just trying not to die,” she said.
Felicia Casanova selected in-person learning for her daughter because she wanted the hybrid model of a few days a week of in-person learning mixed with some online lessons.
Casanova said online learning, particularly the technology, was frustrating. She said her 6-year-old daughter, Amirah Olivo, would ask about when she could go back to school.
On Monday, Oliva came to school ready with patterned knee-high socks, hair in pigtails and a holographic rolling backpack.
Casanova said she was encouraged by the school’s detailed plans for traffic, classroom exchanges and even a quarantine plan to pivot back to online learning.
“The principal is great. She’s been on top of things since last school year,” said Casanova. “Right now it seems to be something that’s manageable.”
Six-year-old Kairi Joseph was so excited to head back to school. Her mother, Ketsia Marcellus, says she believes students have to get back to school.
“Kairi had an amazing first day,” Marcellus said in a text. “She hugged me and thanked me for letting her go back to school.”
This story was originally published October 5, 2020 at 7:59 AM.
