‘We lost hope’: Fort Worth ISD parents want choice for in-person learning amid COVID
About a hundred Fort Worth ISD parents and their kids gathered Monday — the day classes were originally to start — at the district’s administration building to protest the decision to delay the school year.
The protest follows the district’s decision to delay the start of the school year until Sept. 8 after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released guidance that it was up to school officials. Classes will be online-only for the first four weeks and the goal is for families then to have the option to continue virtual learning or switch to in-person classes.
School officials had previously released a reopening plan where classes were to start Aug. 17 and families could choose either online or in-person instruction for their children.
Katie Stadler, a mom with four children at FWISD, was one of the protest organizers within the group “Back in School - Back to Safety,” which focuses on getting children back in school.
Stadler said Fort Worth ISD needs to return the choice of either in-person or online-only to parents. The delayed start of the school year also shows poor planning on the board’s part, she said.
As of now, FWISD leaders have not announced a start to in-person classes. In a town hall Zoom meeting Aug. 11, 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.
“There are families that need to stay home for various reasons, and we respect that. But there’s a lot of families that school is the only safe place for these kids,” Stadler said, adding that schools are often a way for kids to get away from psychological or physical abuse.
Stadler believes schools can reopen safely like the rest of North Texas, but she hasn’t seen any action from the school district yet.
On Aug. 11, Vinny Taneja, Tarrant County public health director, told the Star-Telegram that while it’s inevitable cases will pop up in schools, outbreaks can be avoided if they follow safety guidelines, such as requiring the wearing of masks, following social distancing and conducting temperature checks.
“As you can see, when everybody wears a mask, we’ve been able to break the trend and push it down,” he said.
Stadler also has little faith in the district’s asynchronous online learning plan, saying that children cannot learn that way. She also said there are a lot of people without the necessary technology in the district.
At a virtual town hall meeting on July 28, Scribner described the fall’s online learning as robust and consistent, unlike the spring. Parents will also have access to their children’s accounts and can track their progress, making it easier for children to be held accountable.
The district also recently ordered 10,000 more hotspots and computers, totaling $2.4 million, which will be distributed, he said on July 30.
For Stadler, the district’s decision to delay school and go online-only for four weeks prompted her to pull three of her kids from the district and enroll them in private school.
“We lost hope,” she said.
Another protester, Lyndsay Hoover, said she also looked toward a private school for her child because Fort Worth ISD did not give her a choice for in-person learning.
Hoover said fortunately she can afford private school, but there are parents who simply can’t. That’s why she participated in the protest — to speak for those who don’t have a choice but to wait on the school district.
“If you’re confident and you feel safe sending your children to school, you should have that choice,” Hoover said. “Education is our right.”
This story was originally published August 17, 2020 at 1:04 PM.
