Limited live support to be available
By JOSH RESNEK
Everett’s public schools will be starting a new school year as never before on Sep- tember 15.
Remote learning only will be the bill of fare for Everett’s kids and their parents, many of whom need to find a way to return to their jobs while attending to their children while they’re at home studying online on their computers.
A controlled number of students will be allowed to be taught from a number of “learning centers” which have been designed in locations dispersed around the city for those who need a private spot for remote instruction that is supervised because learning at home from a computer is impossible.
Unless parents work at home, watching the kids while being at work is incompatible with the new normal, the startling new reality of school year 2020- 2021 about to get underway.
Without day care, parents cannot leave their children home alone.
With no job, parents can’t afford daycare.
It is a no win situation in this city where so many are unemployed since March.
For the next nine days, school teachers system wide are immersed in an intensive new learning program designed to ease their way into remote, online learning when schools open in less than two weeks.
School administrators deem the nine days as a “professional development” period for the teachers.
Teachers will be allowed to exercise options in how they teach, according to school department administrators.
Everything is being created side by side the state’s rules and regulations governing hygiene, health care and wellness and social distancing.
Some teachers will choose to teach from inside their classrooms to convey the look and feel of school to students absorbing the new education system online.
Other teachers who wish to remain safe from the COVID-19 virus, will do their teaching from their homes.
“Everything is about satisfying safety needs,” said a school department administrator.
A registration process has already been designed. It allows students to register “present” for their classes online each morning of the school week.
The school department will be having a district wide school materials pick-up for students and their parents the day before classes are scheduled to begin.
Through a variety of online public relations methods, the school department will in- form parents and students of all relevant dates and times.
There may be a mailing as well.
Some questions remain in designing remote biology and chemistry classes as laboratories cannot be replicated inside most homes and apartments.