This article has been updated since it originally appeared in print.
Richmond Public Schools teacher Desirée Dabney had high hopes for her class before the coronavirus pandemic closed schools across the state this spring.
She counts a trip to the Altria Theater last fall for a production of “Hamilton” as a standout experience for her students during her first year as Thomas C. Boushall Middle School’s theater teacher, and as the spring semester got underway, she was eager to host a theater festival and end the year with a field trip to New York City, where she’d take her class to see their first Broadway show.
Those hopes were dashed abruptly when Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the closure of Virginia’s K-12 schools for the remainder of the academic year on March 23 in the wake of the novel coronavirus. From one day to the next, Dabney realized she’d have to scrap her plans and instead pivot to online teaching while attempting to maintain a sense of normalcy for her students.
“Of course, everything just got shut down, and for a lot of students, a fine arts class is one of the only classes where they feel like they can be themselves to create and have fun, so it was devastating,” she says. “I was definitely in my room crying when Gov. Northam shared that we [wouldn’t] be going back to school, but I definitely did not let that stop me as a teacher.”
Dabney is among the teachers and parents in the region who grappled with the transition away from in-person instruction last spring as remote learning became the norm. Following the mandated shutdown, she assured her students and their families that the class would continue virtually, relying on her experience teaching English online to students abroad.
One day later, her small class of about 10 students picked up where they left off with regular videoconferences. “I just made it my mission to give them something when everything was taken away from them in a matter of two days,” Dabney says.
In the weeks after Northam’s announcement, area school districts scrambled to continue teaching students virtually while organizing regular supply distribution events to address food instability and inequities regarding technology access.
Desireé Dabney, a theater teacher at Richmond's Thomas C. Boushall Middle School, worked to maintain a sense of normalcy this spring when classes moved online. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Back to School
After closing school buildings in mid-March, Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield school districts rolled out on-demand modules through programs such as Google Classroom, Canvas and Schoology in a bid to keep students on track. School officials said the approach would allow students to work at their own pace as their families adjusted to daily life during the pandemic, though assignments issued through those platforms weren’t graded and attendance at check-in calls with teachers wasn’t always enforced.
Now, as area school boards move forward with in-person and virtual reopening plans for this fall, teachers and students are heading into uncharted territory. After weighing options earlier this summer that would have allowed students to return to classrooms on a hybrid, part-time basis, school superintendents in Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield now have endorsed plans to start the school year virtually, citing concerns around asymptomatic COVID-19 spread among students and teachers if in-person instruction resumes.
In mid-July, the Richmond School Board voted to keep school buildings closed until at least January, while Chesterfield’s school board opted for a phased reopening plan that will start with fully virtual instruction but will bring vulnerable groups like special education students and English learners back to school as soon as possible. Based on guidance from a panel of local medical experts, Chesterfield Superintendent Merv Daugherty said the district will then transition to a hybrid model and conclude the year with in-person “for all students,” while still offering a remote learning option.
Likewise, the Henrico County School Board elected on July 23 to keep classes online for at least the first nine weeks of the 2020-21 school year, depending on emerging COVID-19 data and recommendations from health experts. Teachers can choose whether to conduct virtual classes from home or their classrooms, the school district announced, and no HCPS staffers will be furloughed — though some employees may see their roles shift based on student needs during the remote learning period. School officials also said they’ll explore ways to bring back vulnerable groups such as special education students, English learners and pre-K through third graders for limited in-person instruction during the first nine weeks of the school year, which begins Sept. 8.
Although classes will continue virtually, school officials in all three districts stressed that their online curricula will be revamped to more closely mirror the traditional school day with graded assignments, verified attendance, and regular interaction between teachers and students. To ensure access to online classes is equitable, officials also say they’ll offer virtual teaching training for educators and continue to distribute Chromebooks to students.
“While I know it will cause hardship for many families, particularly those who have significant child care needs, our No. 1 obligation is the health and safety of our students, our families and our staff,” RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras say, while acknowledging the challenges that the extended school closure will likely pose for students in danger of falling behind and for working parents in need of child care.
Not all area school districts have supported fully virtual reopening plans, however: The Hanover County School Board voted to allow parents to choose five days a week of either full-time online or in-person instruction with its “Return to Learn” plan. The choice is binding: Parents may only change their selection at the end of the first semester.
Students in Goochland County can choose between full-time remote learning or a hybrid model. High school students, preschoolers’ and kindergarteners’ hybrid plans combine two days in the classroom with three days of remote learning, with students split into two cohorts to limit class sizes. Students in grades 1-8 can choose to spend four days in the classroom. All schools will be closed on Wednesdays for deep cleaning.
Reopening strategies take into account the guidelines released by Gov. Northam and Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. James Lane in June, which recommend daily health screenings for students and staff, the use of face coverings wherever possible, spacing out classroom and bus seating by at least 3 feet, and closing or staggering access to communal spaces such as cafeterias.
Before reopening, school districts across the state will be required to submit their plans to the Virginia Department of Education for approval. To fund in-person or virtual reopening plans, area districts will seek
to supplement local funding with federal dollars through the CARES Act, which total nearly $30 million across the five localities.
Margaret Cooke (second from left) says she struggled to work from home, parent her daughters and teach daughter Cassady, 7, a student at Mary Munford Elementary School. Her husband, Daniel, is a firefighter in Petersburg. "We've just been in survival mode," she says. (Photo by Jay Paul)
‘Survival Mode’
While local parents agree that the stopgap remote learning programs implemented by schools this spring weren’t always ideal, they say their children adapted to the shift with varying degrees of success.
Margaret Cooke, a nurse practitioner at Veritas Collaborative, understands schools did their best to implement the programs on short notice, but she says they fell short for her daughter Cassady, a rising second grader at Mary Munford Elementary School. Cooke has worked from home since the pandemic’s onset and has another daughter in preschool and a newborn.
After trying out Richmond’s suite of educational modules, called RPS@Home, Cooke quickly realized that ongoing job responsibilities restricted her and her husband, a firefighter in Petersburg, from keeping up, and says Cassady, 7, couldn’t manage the classes on her own. The family eventually gave up on the remote offerings, she says, instead prioritizing Cassady’s mental well-being during the lockdown with trips to swimming camps and YMCA day care.
“We’ve just been in survival mode,” she says. “I’m trying to do my work and parent the kids, but I can’t also be a teacher. It’s just not possible [while also trying to] take care of myself.”
Henrico County mother Karen Whitacre, meanwhile, says her part-time work schedule allowed her to ensure her three HCPS students completed their work, though Joseph, her rising eighth grader with ADHD, had difficulties adjusting to the time away from his teachers. Although all her children are eager to see their classmates, Whitacre says that so long as asymptomatic COVID-19 transmission remains a threat, virtual learning will remain the safest option for her family.
“I felt like HCPS did a tremendous job in stepping up and transitioning [to remote learning],” she says. “It wasn’t perfect, but I thought they did a great job in adapting to a really ridiculous, extreme and unusual circumstance.”
Other parents, like Wendy Rufrano, were unable to work from home and had to upend their lives to secure child care once schools were shut down. She worked full-time at C&J Auto Sales but cut her hours to just one day per week to stay home with her 7-year-old twins, Cooper and Connor, and their younger brother, Carson, 4.
She’s also faced difficulties in getting weekly speech therapy sessions for Cooper, who was diagnosed with autism in early March. He receives the treatment through his individualized education program (IEP) at RPS’ E.S.H. Greene Elementary School in South Richmond, and although local school districts gave out thousands of laptops to students who needed them, Rufrano says she was unable to secure a computer because the distribution process at Greene Elementary was too disorganized. Cooper has had to rely on the family’s home computer and Rufrano’s cell phone for the therapy sessions, though she says that’s also been problematic.
In response, Kamras says service providers have continued reaching out to students with IEPs virtually during the closure but admits things weren't always perfect during the adjustment to virtual instruction this spring.
Looking toward to this fall, he says RPS will need to devote additional resources to address achievement gaps that were widened in the spring.
“While I think it was really helpful for families to be able to have this [remote learning] resource, I don't think it's provided the same level of instruction [as a classroom], and so, certainly, we are doing a lot of thinking now about gaps that may have widened while we were closed so that we can really support kids when we come back,” Kamras says.
Though patching learning gaps will no doubt be a priority, parents like Henrico County resident Laurie Gray worry about the quarantine’s impact on their children’s mental health and social development. She says her sons, William and James, rising ninth and seventh graders at Deep Run High School and Wilder Middle School, are starting to feel the effects of spending their summer cooped up indoors without access to group activities such as team sports.
“[William] was learning how to be more of a social interaction[-driven] person, work in teams and cooperate, and now ... it's difficult to get him to interact with the family,” she says. “The extrovert [James] is obviously missing all of his friends and trying to figure out what sorts of outlets give him joy when he can't interact with his friends.”
Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras taught a daily math lesson online after schools were closed this spring to prevent the spread of COVID-19. (Photo courtesy Richmond Public Schools)
Push to Reopen Safely
As school districts weigh their options, education advocacy groups and teachers' unions across the state have petitioned officials to keep classes virtual until the spread of COVID-19 is quelled.
Virginia Educators United (VEU), a coalition of educators, parents and community members who advocate for increased school funding, launched a petition in mid-July to keep classrooms closed until infections trend downward for at least 24 days and until preventive measures such as proper classroom ventilation, cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment are fully funded by the state. At press time, the online petition had garnered more than 11,000 signatures and was co-sponsored by teachers’ unions in Richmond, Chesterfield and Fairfax County.
“Reopening schools is not just going to have implications for those of us in the building, it’s a massive increase in personal interaction for our community at large, so what we feel at this point is that we are far from knowing enough about COVID and far from seeing the numbers decrease to the point where it’s safe for students and teachers to go back into school buildings,” says Emma Clark, a VEU organizer and Chesterfield English teacher.
Similarly, Henrico County parent Annette Bates says a return to the five-day school week would be premature. Her family decided to stick with remote learning regardless of the school board’s decision due to lingering uncertainty around safety measures and the anxieties her children are likely to experience in a densely packed school setting.
“My biggest concern about going back [to school] full time is just having the distance between the kids,” says Bates, who teaches preschool in Powhatan. “There’s just too many unknowns, and I’m in support of keeping our kids in a safe and consistent environment, and I just feel like virtual learning will provide that for them.”
“This is a time when we need the politicians to listen to the experts: the health experts and the experts with regard to children.” —Jim Livingston, President, Virginia Education Association
Despite concerns raised by educators, however, some parent groups have pushed for school districts to return to a full five days of in-person instruction per week, citing lower academic performance and stunted social development during the virtual instruction period.
“As long as they remind kids to wash their hands and cover their noses when they sneeze, those basic hygiene things, I feel like I'm pretty comfortable with my kids going back to school and even pretty comfortable with them being on a school bus,” says Chesterfield County parent Elizabeth Frankenfield. “For me, I'm more concerned about their mental health and their ability to get back into a schedule that better supports them.”
Educators’ Concerns
Parents like Frankenfield aren’t alone; state Republican legislators also have pushed for reopening models that target a return to the traditional school week, and in early July, President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal aid from school districts that opt against in-person instruction this fall.
However, Virginia Education Association President Jim Livingston says educators and health officials should lead the way, not politicians.
"The people that we’re hearing from out of Washington, they are not scientists, they are not health care providers; they are politicians,” he says. “This is a time when we need the politicians to listen to the experts: the health experts and the experts with regard to children. Parents clearly know what's best for their child, but when we're talking about groups of people and so forth, it is educators who are trained to work directly with them.”
In June, the statewide teachers’ union compiled a report on reopening concerns based on input from school employees gathered at sessions held throughout the state, which include worries around job security and child care support for educators, implementing safety standards that protect high-risk students and staff members, and ensuring equitable access to online content.
“From the onset, we have always insisted that health and safety are the primary concerns, and they need to be the primary concerns moving forward,” he says. “We can always make up academic ground over time, but we're not always able to return someone's health to them.”
Despite the preventive measures laid out by the state, concerns around disease spread in school buildings raise questions for educators who are at a higher risk of contracting the virus or who live with others who are immunocompromised.
Dana Johnson, a civics teacher at Tomahawk Creek Middle School in Chesterfield, has struggled between a desire to get back into the classroom and anxiety around contracting COVID-19 because she’s over 50 years old and has an autoimmune disease and asthma.
“I hope that we will be back at school in the fall. We know that the kids need to come back, and we want the kids to come back, but there's a bit of fear for those of us who are at higher risk of complications,” she says. “I never in my life thought I'd be scared to go to work, but it could happen.”
Because of the uncertainty that teachers like Johnson face, Livingston urges that school decisions need to promote health and safety standards in classrooms proactively rather than being forced to be reactive if a second wave of infections is triggered.
“We're hopeful that the localities and the federal government really take the position that health and safety of everyone has to be the first concern,” he says. “We can't go back to business as usual when we're talking about the health and safety of our students and our staff people ... and expect everything to be OK, because it won’t be.”
Emotional Impacts of School Closures
Parents often point to emotional distresses that their children suffered while away from classmates and teachers as one of the primary reasons to reopen classrooms this fall.
Dr. Bela Sood, a senior professor for child and mental health policy at Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU, says that traditionally, schools provide a valuable opportunity for children to leave their homes and learn how to develop social skills with their peers. Not everyone adapts well to social situations, however, and when school closures were announced, she expected them to benefit introverted children and teens. But as the months have gone on, she’s seen that everyone is growing anxious as important social milestones such as proms and traditional graduation ceremonies go by the wayside.
“We see a definite world order emerging where kids just don't know what to do and how to do it,” Sood says, adding that while children and teens have continued to interact through social media, the lack of physical interaction has been among the biggest challenges for young people throughout the pandemic.
As the lockdown stretches on and schools prepare to reopen, she says families with children should attempt to schedule safe, physically distanced opportunities for social interaction and growth.
Photo via Getty Images
Five Days a Week
While school officials prepare to resume classes this fall and education groups advocate for enhanced safety measures and improved virtual courses, some parents have gathered online to petition for a return to the five-day in-person school week.
One of the larger statewide efforts is called “VA Back2School,” a Facebook advocacy group that has ballooned in popularity since its creation in May, reaching more than 20,000 members at press time. There, parents from across the state share articles, discuss concerns around their children’s educational progress, and organize efforts to contact local and state lawmakers to advocate for legislation that allows parents the option to send their children to school full time. (Editor's note: In late July, the group’s administrators made VA Back2School an invitation-only private group and stopped accepting new members after claiming people who were not aligned with their goals began joining the group to share its posts “in a negative way.”)
One of the group’s creators, Virginia Beach parent Becky Henderson Hay, says the effort picked up steam following the release of Gov. Northam’s school reopening strategy in June, with parents fearful of returning to another semester of lackluster remote learning modules. Like other parents, Hay says her three children were frustrated during the time away from fellow classmates and teachers, and she remains concerned about educational and emotional setbacks that could result from more time away from the classroom.
Though critics say existing issues with overcrowding in schools make even a hybrid reopening approach questionable when it comes to preventing virus spread, Hay says she’s encouraged by existing efforts to mitigate COVID-19 spread in day cares that have remained open during the lockdown.
“This is about choice and about the priorities of schools, which is to educate,” she says.
While a return to normalcy is the goal, Henrico County School Board Chairman Roscoe Cooper says fears of a second wave of COVID-19 outbreaks make an immediate return to full-time in-person instruction unlikely while the pandemic continues.
“One thing about this pandemic is that we don't dictate to it, it dictates to us,” he says. “We have to be cautious and careful and considerate concerning staff, families and students.”
While most local school districts have opted to start the school year virtually, Richmond and Henrico Health District Director Dr. Danny Avula cautions that face masks and social distancing will be needed at a minimum to lower the risk of coronavirus transmission when classrooms reopen. The state’s reopening guidelines strongly suggest the use of face masks if 3 to 6 feet of physical distancing cannot be maintained in school buildings.
Pointing to available research around the virus, he explains that children who contract COVID-19 tend to show less severe symptoms or be asymptomatic at higher rates than adults, which means physical distancing could be an effective strategy to keep teachers and other students safe.
However, as the father of five children and the husband of an RPS kindergarten teacher, Avula acknowledges that getting young children to comply with physical distancing and face-mask requirements will be daunting, leading to some inherent risk of disease spread if schools reopen. Ultimately, though, he says the socio-emotional costs associated with keeping kids out of schools alongside existing inequities regarding access to resources at home make a return to classrooms compelling.
“[Schools] can set up the systems and figure out how to stagger bus schedules and make as many adaptations as possible throughout the school day, but the reality is that there will be still some risk to adults working in that building,” he says. “While we should work hard to mitigate that risk, we need to go in eyes wide open, understanding that any increase in human interaction will likely increase the risk of disease transmission.”
