As Alabama’s 3rd-largest district opens more school buildings, enrollment soars for virtual education

Baldwin County on Wednesday will become the largest school system in Alabama to allow students back into the classroom to open the 2020-2021 school year, including inside three new schools officially opened this week.

But at the same time, a growing number of students are seeking virtual education as opposed to going back into the schools full-time as coronavirus numbers continue to rise. According to Superintendent Eddie Tyler, the opening of the schools is a “daunting task,” but he acknowledged the county’s rapid growth as the rationale for continued additions of new “brick and mortar” structures.

“It’s a chore to get this done in the middle of COVID-19,” said Tyler, following the official opening of a new $30.7 million high school and middle school building in Orange Beach on Monday. “I don’t think anyone saw this coming or predicted how this would have grown back in January, February and in the beginning of March when we shut schools down across the state.”

He added, “I won’t say it’s frustrating. We know we were constructing schools for growth and I understand neighborhoods continue to open across the county.”

Indeed, Baldwin County remains Alabama’s fastest growing by far since the 2010 U.S. Census, adding over 35,000 residents (the equivalent of the population of Phenix City in southeast Alabama) and experiencing a growth rate of around 20% during the past decade.

The new schools opened included the 130,000-square-foot high school and middle school in Orange Beach, an approximately $21.3 million Belforest Elementary School east of Daphne, and an approximately $21.1 million elementary school in Foley.

Even with the new buildings, the school system is experiencing a rise in students who want to attend the county’s virtual school that began in 2013-14 and enrolled 346 students late last year. At the start of this school year, virtual school registration is up to 6,500 to 7,000 – an astonishing 1,920% increase in less than a year -- as parents and students scour alternatives to traditional in-person education during the pandemic.

Enrollment within the virtual schools represents over 20% of the overall student population for the Baldwin County School System. Last year’s overall enrollment was 31,000 students making it the third largest school system behind only Mobile County and Jefferson County public schools.

In short, virtual schools in Alabama provide online-only education for students that allows them flexibility on when to take classes and complete assignments without always coming to an actual campus. But Baldwin County’s virtual school program includes a “blended” experience in which students take classes online, but also show up at times to a traditional setting at campuses such as one that opened in December in Daphne.

Tyler said there will be about a half dozen “satellite” facilities around the county that will support students attending virtual schools.

But some parents have expressed frustrations in recent days that new enrollments into virtual schools was stopped on July 31.

“We were bursting at the seams,” said Tyler, who came under some criticism for halting virtual school enrollment late last month and at a time when other large school systems – like Mobile and Jefferson counties – were delaying the start of school and going online only. In an email Sunday to parents, Tyler said that the school system was reopening virtual school registration and that enrollment would continue “until we reach capacity.” He also said the county was creating a “wait list” in case registration fills back up again.

Tyler, in his email to parents, said virtual school is “very different than traditional school” and requires “a lot of self-directed work from your children, discipline and when necessary, mom and dad’s involvement to sit by them and make sure things are going well.”

He said Monday he anticipates some students and parents will realize that virtual school “is not really what they wanted or thought it would be in managing their child and will come back to brick and mortar.” Tyler, in his email to parents, said he would enroll his own children “without question” into traditional school.

He said any return to “distance learning” in which students are educated strictly online, would be decided by a “combination of factors” that include the following: Levels of contagion, growth in contagion, hospital capacity, mortality rates by age group and in general. The decision, he said would come from education and health officials as well as local and state leaders.

Baldwin County, since July 1, has seen the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rise 432% from 686 cases to 3,651 as of Monday, according to the website Bama Tracker. The county added 107 new cases on Sunday. But the virus hasn’t been as deadly in Baldwin County compared to the largest of Alabama’s counties – since the pandemic began in March, the county has had 25 deaths. Only Morgan County, among the 10th biggest in Alabama, has had fewer deaths related to COVID-19.

All students in the second grade and above will be required to wear masks or a face covering when they return to school, according to the health order issued late last month by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.

Tyler said he hopes parents help the school system out by making sure their children maintain social distancing and wear face coverings when they are not on campus.

“What disturbs me or confuses me is when the parents are concerned about their children coming back to brick and mortar,” said Tyler. “I understand that. But when I see pictures sent to me of parents and children in large groups without masks taking pictures but, yet when they walk the halls and we get some diagnoses and that (becomes) our fault. Well, as parents, you can help us prevent that in making sure your children, outside our walls, are taking precautions.”

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