ORLANDO, Fla. -- Days after Gov. Ron DeSantis's announcement that schools will stay closed until the end of the year, districts are now putting together plans for how to handle the rest of this unusual school year.

Orange County Public Schools -- the eighth-largest district in the nation and fourth-largest in Florida -- says its students are logging in consistently, digitally submitting about 400,000 assignments daily through virtual learning programs. 

The district says middle- and high-schoolers are one-to-one with laptops, but not all elementary students have those devices. About 60,000 students get paper packets for their schoolwork weekly.

"While the students that have the packets may be doing different work, they are still doing work that is standard-based, so the content that they are getting is still... what they need at this point,” said Maurice Draggon, the district's senior director of digital learning. 

Judi Hayes has a sixth-grader, Jack, and second-grader, Will, at home using both packets and devices. She said her kids are staying on pace with schoolwork.

“Some of the classes are using the same lesson plans that they had published at the beginning of the year, and we seem to be keeping up with them. I think a lot of the classes, like math and science, were gearing up for end-of-year, end-of-course exams or standardized testing, so taking that off the table kind of frees them up, maybe (for) diving a little deeper into the substantive work that they wouldn’t have had a chance to do,” Hayes said. 

Fourth- and fifth-graders in Title I schools are now getting laptop access as well, Draggon said. They've handed out 2,000 so far, Draggon said, and the district is exploring the possibility of expanding that further.

Hayes said it's a relief knowing students won't be returning to classrooms this year. 

"I would not have been comfortable sending them back, so it's nice to know the governor was on the same page finally," she said.

While teachers work to make sure students aren't slipping behind on schoolwork, the district is working on ways to ensure the rest of the school year goes smoothly for all. 

“No matter where things go and where they turn, we’re just trying to make sure that we can stay one step ahead,” Draggon said.