ARKANSAS, USA — We’re only months away from the start of a new school year and Arkansas school leaders are working to figure out the best way to educate our students.
Several Arkansas school districts are surveying parents to find out what type of instruction they’d feel comfortable with.
One option is having ‘blended’ on-site classes, which will implement online learning.
Another option is virtual instruction.
Christian Appling’s 1st grader attends Bauxite Public Schools.
“I'm hoping he can at least stay in school, like for most of the year, so he can have a social experience, like meet friends and stuff like that," Appling said.
She feels on-site instruction would be best for her son.
“Kids under like 10, I think, don’t have to wear a mask, so mine won’t be wearing a mask. But they’re keeping them six feet apart and they’re pretty much staying in their rooms," Appling said.
Hannah Knox has a 2nd grader in the Little Rock School District and she’s not okay with a note sent out by the district to pick an option by June 29.
“We had a very short time to figure out if we wanted to do the virtual or if we wanted to do the school in-person,” Knox said.
Knox still has lots of questions she wants to be answered before she makes a decision, but she’s leaning toward virtual instruction.
“Are they going to take temperatures and how many kids are going to be in the classroom per class? Because they didn’t give any specifics about that,” Knox said.
The Pulaski County Special School District superintendent said figuring out what’s next will be an ongoing conversation.
“We have about 4,000 responses right now from a survey we sent out yesterday," Charles McNulty said. "We’ll take that information, we’re meeting with a community task force made up of civic leaders, teachers, parents, some of our amazing health professionals -- especially experts in infectious disease. We’ll do that next week and then we should have a recommendation to the board the following week and be ready to go.”
THV11 reached out to LRSD to get input on their plans and the survey they put out, but they have not yet responded.