How will schools maintain high quality of education during pandemic?

Summer is typically no vacation for Leonard Rich.

The superintendent of Laurel School District near New Castle, in Lawrence County, normally watches his students leave for summer break then dives into test scores and curriculum plans with his staff to improve education for the following school year.

But that's not happening this summer. Rich is worrying about PPE, hand-sanitizing stations, mitigation efforts, and what to do about students who are autoimmune compromised, when his schools open their doors in the fall.

That's the burden for Pennsylvania educators this year: balancing health and safety during the pandemic with the promise of a good, solid education.

"We will have teachers teaching and students learning in multiple modes," said David Bolton, superintendent of the Pennridge School District. "Even though the classroom desks will be further apart, face coverings will be worn, and some students will be learning from home, the focus will remain on caring for our students and providing quality instruction."

How will they do it?

For each school in this state, there's a slightly different plan. In , students will work from home on laptops, watching and interacting with their teachers, who will work in the school's classrooms. At Laurel, the school district surveyed its families, and the vast majority want their kids back in a physical classroom. Pennridge students will have several options, including a full-time return to school.

For most schools — no matter the offerings — there's a mountain to move before classes start. When they closed their doors officially on March 16, the state canceled state assessment tests. That isn't likely to happen again this school year.

"I’m going to make a prediction that’s supported by Captain Obvious," Rich said. "We're going to see significant declines in test scores."

Cortney and Mark Hendrickson of York are so worried about the uncertainties for their children in the fall that they've decided to homeschool them for the first time.

Their 9- and 7-year-old daughters attend York Suburban School District, which has chosen a hybrid model for the fall — two days a week in the classroom for each student and three days at home, keeping schools at 50 percent capacity.

"We can have beautiful days in our house, outside, reading, learning, and we don’t have to worry about all that disconnectedness," Cortney Hendrickson said. "We’re choosing to see this as a blessing for our family, but I feel for families that don’t have that choice."

More:Hybrid, virtual or full time: The latest back-to-school plans for Bucks, Montco districts

Karen L. Bierman, professor and director of the Child Study Center at Penn State University, calls this school year "untested territory."

"We just haven't had this kind of disruption of our school system before," she said.

When children go home for the summer, they continue to learn, but not at the same rate. Those who come from families with higher incomes and more resources grow more educationally during the summer than those from lower-income families with fewer resources, she said. This year, that gap may spill into the school year, as more work will be done at home.

"That’s the biggest worry I have," she said. "There are families who are just not in a situation to step into this gap and not able to fill it in the way other families are."

The survey says ...

"As with everyone in the community, there is a wide range of feelings as we plan for school in the fall," Bolton said. "We are having conversations with staff who have individual situations, but currently have the staff that we need."

As part of their back-to-school planning, districts asks parents to weigh in. And overwhelmingly, they said they wanted physical school doors to open in the fall.

Yet changes in state guidelines caused many districts to pull back on re-opening plans in recent weeks. Many are delaying full-time reopening in favor of all virtual starts, or ones that mix in-school and virtual learning in hybrid models.

How the level of education will remain high, though, weighs on administrators.

"I worry mostly about the underserved kids," said Quakertown Community School District board member Keith Micucci during a recent meeting where the board voted to delay full-time in person learning. "I worry about the kids that need the education they're not getting. The kids that have IEPs who are sturggling. I worry about losing a year of education. But I also think, at the end of the day, did we get an accomplishment that we got the kids back, but the experience stinks, and the education may or may not be worse?"

With each adjustment, district administrators focus on the health and safety plan, required by the state in the pandemic, over education.

Laptops for everyone

Teachers will return to their classrooms in September at a charter school system in Philadelphia, but the students won't be with them.

Andrea Coleman-Hill, the CEO of the Laboratory Charter School of Communications and Languages, has two campuses attended by children from throughout Philadelphia. Her administration's decision was to keep children home - for now - while their teachers set up space in their own classrooms to teach virtually.

"We will simulate our education plan for the year as if they were physically here," Coleman-Hill said. "We want our children to interact with our education all day every day."

The charter program provides laptops and, if needed, hotspots for their students. Coleman-Hill is desperate to see the digital divide close, as students in wealthy suburban areas typically have more technology available than urban and rural students.

In Pennsylvania, more is spent per student in suburban school districts than rural and urban districts because funding comes primarily from property taxes.

"In the 21st century, we’re still talking about inequity in education, and who does that hurt? It hurts children in urban areas where funding is unavailable," she said.

The Morrisville School District was struggling to obtain laptops for all its students, until nonprofits stepped in to provide enough funds to support a 1:1 Chromebook initiative. 

"I am deeply grateful for our local community of faith as well as our nonprofit partners in Bucks County who have helped us to provide these precious resources," Superintendent Jason Harris said. "These acts of love and kindness are exactly what our school community needs right now." 

Reinventing learning

Gregg Behr expects to be more engaged in his kids' education, as part of the changing educational systems rising around his two school-age children.

"As a parent, I'm going to have to do more teaching and learning in my own home," said Behr, who is a bit of a living legend in Pittsburgh.

He has spent his career grappling with the same issues that face schools during this pandemic year: What does it take to remake learning and rebuild a learning ecosystem?

Known for his work to promote learning and the successful development of children, he was honored four years ago by then-President Barack Obama as a champion of change. He's the executive director of the Grable Foundation, which has built something called Remake Learning, a network of schools, museums, libraries and other entities in southwestern Pennsylvania that work together to re-imagine education inside and outside the classroom.

"As we think about learning at its very core ... kids ask: Am I safe? Am I loved? Do I belong? The challenge of navigating all of this now is made all that much harder," Behr said.

Bart Rocco, a retired school superintendent, described 2020 as creating a paradigm shift for education.

"Once this whole process is done, we won't be the same," said Rocco, a Grable fellow, working with Behr. "We'll personalize education for children. This is a chance to be more personal with parents about learning."

He, Behr, and their colleague, former superintendent Bille Rondinelli, believe education can be overhauled as a result of what's happening, rebuilding relationships between educators and parents and imagining new ways to interact with students.

"We've really gotta rethink structurally how we teach our children. It's certainly scary ... but I think it will make education better in the long run," Rocco said.

"It's OK to reach out to the principal at your school. It's OK to reach out to the teacher," Behr said. "Despite the craziness of the world, there are many more good people than bad people, and there are many, many people who want to help your child."

Reporter James Scipione contributed to this report.