ORLANDO, Fla. — Orange County Public Schools is rearranging its reopening plan so it can offer innovative choices for parents while complying with Florida's executive order to open schools five days a week.

The state education commissoner’s mandate says all schools have to open their brick and mortar campuses in August. Districts are expected to submit a plan.

The school board met for more than nine hours Tuesday for a work session to hash out that plan.

OCPS Superintendent Dr. Barbara Jenkins says they believe they have an innovative plan for reopening that will meet all the requirements.

As part of that meeting, board members spent more than an hour questioning health department officer Dr. Raul Pino on all things COVID-19 and children.

Some asked him how they can consider reopening brick and mortar campuses when the cases in Orange County have been surging and hospitalizations have gone up.

Pino said there should be many precautions taken to protect students, but that kids will be exposed sooner or later, and that kids are at a much lower risk to get complications from COVID-19.

He also said though, it’s extremely important to protect kids and school staff who are at high risk for complications from COVID-19.

When asked about temperature checks, Pino said he believed doing temperature checks at the schools would have a negative impact, because you would have kids waiting in line and congregating together.

Pino said students’ temperatures should be taken at home before they get on a bus or get to a school. Pino emphasized that anything to prevent students from congregating can and should be done.

Because of Orange County's mask mandate, all students and staff will be required to wear masks when coming back to school.

Board member Linda Kobern suggested that, since the emergency order says schools have to start in August, they delay the start of school to the end of August instead of August 10..

Board Chairperson Teresa Jacobs said she believes the order from Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran severely limits their power and choice in the matter. She also expressed concern over how they would realistically be able to social distance in schools and buses.

“We just lost a great deal of control on the decision making based on what came out yesterday,” said Jacobs.

Despite that limitation, the district presented a plan to the board with three options for parents to choose from.

1. They can either choose to have their child in the physical classroom for in-person learning
   
   
2. Do Orange County Virtual School, where students do all the work online, also known as distance learning
   
   
3. Or participate in what's called "OCPS Launch Ed @ Home," a live stream option for students to watch and participate in classroom lessons and be on the same bell schedule as their in-person classmates.

The Board will have to get state approval for that third option.

Also, in-person learning will look very different. Because of the Orange County mask mandate, all students and staff will have to wear masks.

The district’s plan could also include lunches in classrooms, and plexi-glass shields and partitions between student desks.

Jenkins says they’ll need a lot of parents to choose virtual options in order to keep class sizes small.

“Remember, based on what our parents preferences are when they indicate to us their choices, we may have a slimmer number of students on campuses,” Jenkins said.

The district says they’ll be surveying parents again very soon to see which option they pick so they can plan out how to allocate their resources before the board makes a final decision next week.

They plan to make that decision at their next board meeting on July 14. 

Parents, Teachers Leary of Returning to School Campuses

Parents Jasmin and James Barone sit down to color with their son, Jettsen. At six years old, he’s set to start the second grade in a few weeks, but the parents aren’t OK with him going back in-person. 

“I’m incredibly stressed. Look, I care for my son, he’s staying home. He’s not going to school, I will school him here,” said Barone.

With so many unanswered questions about school cleaning routines, social distancing in buildings, and how contact tracing would work, they're just not comfortable with him going back to school in the fall at Castle Creek Elementary School in Orange County.

Freedom High School teacher Matthew Hazel said returning to class with case numbers so high doesn't make sense to him, and he points to changing classes as an example of the ways people can be put at risk. 

“I mean, imagine hundreds of middle schoolers having three minutes to get to the next class, you’re bumping shoulders and it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do it in a safe and socially distant way,” Hazel said. 

“I’m extremely uncomfortable with the idea of going back," Hazel said. "As a public health concern, there are too many cases in the state. And just the logistics of it, most of our classrooms are interior and cooled with central air. So with teachers and students, even if you try to maintain some semblance of social distancing, you’re still in the same enclosed space and breathing the same recycled air for seven hours a day."

Starting a new school year with distance learning would be tough, Hazel said, but it makes more sense than returning to the traditional classroom setting so early.

“I don’t want to see the lives of teachers and educational professionals scarified on the altar of restarting the economy,” Hazel said. 

Barone knows that feeling all too well. While they can keep their son at home, they know other families aren’t as fortunate.

“I feel a distress for people who don’t have a voice," Barone said. "I feel a despair for orders being given by state elected authorities that don’t necessarily seem to have our best interests in mind."

With more questions than answers for himself and other parents ahead of the start of the new school year, Barone said he worries about the effects this decision to reopen schools will have.

"There's a problem on top of a problem here. This isn't even a well-made house of cards, it's like someone opened a deck and shot it across the room and said 'we're ready to open schools'," Barone said. “These plans are the best intentions gone wrong and the best intentions cannot avoid negative outcome consequences."