Seminole County parents must decide if they will send their child back to school

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. - Parents in Seminole County have another big decision to make this week and that is how their child will learn next semester.

More Seminole County students could be heading back to the classroom in the new year. The school district emailed families a survey to complete on whether they would like their students currently attending virtual school to go back to in-person instruction.

“We know we have many parents who’s students are learning remotely who are anxious to get their kids back Face-to-Face,” Superintendent Walt Griffin said. “They see things are going very well at the schools. We’re not having issues with the students and employees wearing masks. The schools are clean.”

The district says that once they know how many students plan to return to the classroom, they will need enough time to properly prepare and change schedules to accommodate for social distancing in the spring.

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“Logistically we have a lot of scheduling that has to happen not just the individual students and schools, but staff,” Seminole County Schools spokesman Michael Lawrence said. “We sent over 500 plus teachers from our brick and mortar campuses to our virtual school to support that.”

With trying to maintain smaller class sizes, there are a lot of moving parts. Officials said they will need to order more Plexiglas and supplies, as well as many arrangements for transportation that could include adding more buses, drivers, and bus stops.

All of those decisions are being made before the school system even knows whether or not the Governor will extend the emergency order allowing students to continue with their education online.

“Right now we’re not sure what the state’s going to do,” Lawrence said. Out of the district’s 67,000 students, about 50 percent are learning from home or in a hybrid format.

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"Our choice would be to hopefully continue this for the duration of the school year to accommodate as many families as possible as well as staff,” Lawrence said. “We have staff members who have health issues.”

All Seminole County families are required to respond to the survey in their email and have until November 9th at 11 p.m. to do so.

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