ATLANTA — It’s become a norm for families: turning their homes into classrooms for their children.
“The teachers have been very involved. They’ve been available for our kids,” one family told 11Alive.
“My daughter thinks home is home and school is school, so we shouldn’t have to do work 24/7,” said another parent.
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Parents are sharing different experiences with remote learning from district to district, but Fulton County Schools Superintendent Dr. Mike Looney said they’ve been doing their best to serve all students.
“We as a school district did a survey, because we wanted our parents to give us feedback about how we were doing, and overwhelmingly the feedback was positive," he said. "Our parents have identified a few things we could be doing better if we were to continue this process."
Looney said a challenge with the pandemic has been some of the unknowns with what lies ahead, so the district has to be prepared for all scenarios. But, what Looney does know, is they’ve improved their ability to do remote learning.
“Quite frankly, we’ve learned to do this much better than we knew how to do it before March twelfth," he said. "We’re taking those lessons learned and applying them to the 2.0 version of remote learning for Fulton County schools."
DeKalb County Schools superintendent finalist Dr. Rudy Crew said some learn better with face-to-face interaction, but during these times, schools need to be ready.
“I think we have to be prepared to do both well,” Crew said.
The CDC issued guidelines for schools to reopen, which Dr. Looney said is possible for Fulton County in the fall. But, admitted there are also different phases the district would have to go through before reopening.
He stressed that buildings are going to be extra clean, with a more uniform cleaning and training procedures in implemented district-wide. Leaders will also have to rethink big school gatherings, Looney said.
“We have to take the lessons learned from this experience and apply them to our knowledge base to make school even better in the future,” he said.