Group plans protest against Fort Worth school district’s COVID-19 online learning plan
A group of families plans to demonstrate at the Fort Worth Independent School District administration building at 8 a.m. Monday — what would have been the first day of school — to protest the district’s online learning plan amid the coronavirus pandemic.
FWISD plans to start school on Sept. 8, and all classes will be held virtually for the first four weeks. Katie Stadler, a mom with four children at FWISD and the demonstration organizer, said hundreds of families oppose the district’s decision, and the district has not done a good enough job preparing for the school year.
Stadler is part of the DFW Facebook group “Back in School - Back to Safety.” The group, which focuses on getting children back in school, has about 1,700 members.
She hopes anywhere from 300 to 500 families will attend Monday’s demonstration, and she has been passing out fliers in FWISD neighborhoods. She’s specifically sought out Hispanic and other minority communities because she feels the district has not done a good job including them in the conversation. While visiting with families in those neighborhoods, she said, she talked to one woman who had no idea about the delayed start of school, or virtual learning — she thought her kids would be returning to school as normal on Monday.
Stadler blames the FWISD board for the lack of information to community members, especially those who do not speak English or do not have access to the internet. The board has been conducting online surveys to determine how parents feel about their kids returning to school, which misses an entire section of the community, she said.
Some families that are hardest to contact may also be the ones who need their kids to return to school the most, Stadler said.
“A lot of families are at risk that we can’t even reach. We don’t know if kids are being cared for or fed,” she said.
The district said to ensure families without internet can learn virtually, it has handed out 10,000 laptops and 11,000 hot spots to students, and has 20,000 Chromebooks and 10,000 hot spots set aside for further distribution.
But Stadler said keeping kids at home also negatively impacts families economically, since parents might not be able to work with their kids at home.
School districts can open schools safely if they have properly prepared and educated their teachers about COVID-19 precautions, Stadler said, and she blames FWISD board members for failing to provide teachers and students with a safe learning environment.
“It’s become a game of politics, unfortunately,” she said.
As an example, she said the district has changed the requirements for when it is safe to return to school.
Stadler encouraged even those who do not want their kids to immediately return to school to join the demonstration.
“No matter when you want to return to in-person learning — be it now, 10% or 5% or when COVID disappears — you need to be there or you may never get back in the classroom this school year,” she said in a Facebook post.
The percentage she is referring to is the seven-day rolling average of coronavirus tests that come back positive in a county.
In a town hall Zoom meeting Tuesday, Fort Worth school district Superintendent Kent Scribner said the decision to delay in-classroom learning was made based on the surge of local COVID-19 cases, KERA reported. He said the seven-day rolling average of positive cases in Tarrant County was still too high to safely open classrooms. Tarrant County’s average was somewhere between 11% and 12%, he said.
Stadler argues that FWISD funding is at-risk if the district commits to online learning. The Texas Education Agency announced that if schools do not return to in-person learning within eight weeks of opening, they may have their federal funding cut.
Stadler said that while reopening schools will lead to a rise of coronavirus cases, she does not think the rise will be grave enough that kids should be kept home.
“Do I think no one is going to get COVID? No,” she said. “But do I think COVID is going anywhere? No.”
The school board decided on July 30 that Fort Worth schools will remain closed until Sept. 8, when online learning will start. After four weeks, families will have a choice of in-person or online learning, according to the district’s plans.
The number of coronavirus cases across the state is likely rising but being significantly under-counted, according to virologists and epidemiologists.
As of Tuesday, Texas’ seven-day average positivity rate was at 24.5%, according to Texas Department of State Health Services data. Public health experts say that for contact tracing to be effective, the number of positive cases out of those tested should remain below 5%. The increase in positivity hasn’t been coupled with a rise in testing; instead, it has decreased by tens of thousands of tests.
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 2:13 PM.
