FUESD students return to all-virtual learning for two weeks

Fallbrook Union Elementary School District students returned to all-virtual learning on Jan. 5, and will continue to learn distantly for a two-week buffer period after winter break before students in transitional kindergarten through first grade, to be followed by students in second and third grades as well as special education students, will be allowed to return to classrooms part-time five days a week.

The FUESD board approved the district’s Phase Three reopening plan at its Dec. 14 meeting.

Prior to winter break, students in grades TK-1 were on campus for half-days Monday through Thursday and learned virtually on Fridays. Grades 2 through 8 have been attending classes two days a week in a “cohort” model, with one group in classrooms Mondays and Wednesdays and a second group in classrooms on Tuesdays and Thursdays, since October.

Superintendent Candace Singh explained at the Dec. 14 board meeting that the district was planning to have all students learn virtually from the end of winter break until Tuesday, Jan. 19, when in-person classes will begin operating again as they were before the break, to head off potential health issues resulting from students and families traveling during the break. The district will then transition grades TK-3 to a half-day, five-day-a-week, in-person format on Feb. 1.

“We know that this is going to be difficult and it’s going to feel like a step backwards for some that we would move to virtual instruction for two weeks,” Singh said at the time. “This is a short-term sacrifice for long-term success. The health and well being of our staff and students is the most important thing for when we get back into the classroom.”

While Singh said during the meeting that no coronavirus cases had been traced to transmission on FUESD school sites, there were students who were sickened after Thanksgiving break and had to be quarantined.

“We had a number of families and children traveling and gathering over the Thanksgiving break which caused some children to get sick and therefore we had to quarantine kids,” Singh told the board.

She also said some teachers who traveled during the Thanksgiving holiday resulted in a much-higher-than-anticipated need for substitutes, which she said was a difficult challenge for the district to overcome.

“We were very serious about wanting anyone who traveled to follow the public health guidelines and the travel advisories of quarantining for 14 days,” Singh said.

She said the district had to send as many as 14 substitutes to Potter Jr. High School after the Thanksgiving holiday.

“And because of that, when we look at two weeks off now for the Christmas holiday, I am strongly recommending that we move to two weeks of virtual instruction to ensure that everyone is well after traveling and after gathering and what we can fully anticipate will be more gathering over a two-week break,” Singh said. “If we do that and we have all of our children learning virtually for two weeks, it provides consistency for them and we know everyone is healthy and well and we can bring everyone back on the 19th (of January) and not have that really challenging situation of there being so many substitutes at one time.”

She also said the two-week virtual learning period, plus the two-week transitional period after that during which TK-1 students will return to attending classes four days a week and everyone else will return to their cohort model, will give the district time to hire additional teachers to make it possible for TK-3 and all special education students to begin attending classes five days a week on Feb. 1. The FUESD board approved five additional teachers at the same Dec. 14 meeting to help bring class sizes down for grades 2 and 3 to a level safe enough for reopening.

“We are focusing on these early grades, as I shared with you before, because of the critical component of teaching children to read before third grade,” Singh told the board, “and that’s why we want to continue to have our youngest children return to school to make sure that we’re working very closely with them on their literacy development, in addition to our children with special needs. And we know that we have children with special needs that need to be back in the classroom every day if possible, so we’re working on that now.”

Singh said the actual daily schedule will remain the same for students who return to campus five days a week, just with the addition of an extra day for the TK-1 students who are already consistently attending in-person classes, and an extra three days for those who are attending classes in a cohort model.

“We can’t do (all-day classes) yet because of the large gatherings for lunches and things like that,” Singh said on Dec. 14. “Those are still practices we cannot put back in place. We’ll do the grab and go lunches like we’ve been doing, but five days a week for second and third grade added on, so that would mean all TK-3 students are here until 12:30 or 12:40 (p.m.), depending on their school.”

Singh said some principals may make minor adjustments to the schedule to allow for staggered drop-off and pick-up times and similar measures.

Face coverings, she said, have been and will remain required for staff and students on school sites.

Singh said the district’s next goal will be to return English learner students in grades 4-8 to in-person classes five days a week.

FUESD’s virtual and homeschool academy options will remain available to any parents or guardians who do not wish to send their students back to in-person classes, and the district will work to get families the option that works for them, even if they change their minds down the road.

“We are not a district that says you have to choose one thing and stay with it all year,” Singh said. Though she made clear that the district may not be able to accommodate specific requests like sending a student back to the exact same school or teacher as before, “we are very flexible in working with our families that if they have a desire to move to our virtual academy, we make that happen. If children want to move out of the virtual academy to one of our regular schools, we make that happen.”

Will Fritz can be reached by email at [email protected].