Fort Worth ISD’s online platform was panned last school year. How’s the new one working?
Kerri Menchaca could tell her daughter was anxious last spring, after Fort Worth ISD shut down its schools and moved classes online.
At first, Menchaca’s daughter adapted well enough to the online classes, Menchaca said. But a couple of weeks after the shutdown, her teacher started using a new format. That system worked better, Menchaca said, but for her daughter, it was one more change.
It all gave Menchaca and her husband their share of headaches, too, she said. They had to help their kids adjust to class format changes and deal with the uncertainty about when their kids would be able to go back to school.
So before the district started its online classes Sept. 8, Menchaca didn’t know what to expect, and her daughter worried that the classes would be impersonal. But a few days into the school year, the classes seem better organized, and her daughter seems less anxious. During online classes, Menchaca watches her daughter as she smiles, laughs and talks to her teacher and classmates.
“It’s very sweet,” Menchaca said.
The first day of school for Fort Worth ISD marked the roll out of a new model for online classes. It replaces a platform the district adopted for distance learning when schools shut down last spring as the COVID-19 pandemic reached North Texas. But that platform was unpopular among teachers, students and parents, mainly because it didn’t allow for much live instruction from teachers. District officials promised a better experience this year.
Many families reported technology issues on the first day of school, and the Fort Worth ISD website was down for much of the morning. But once they worked through those issues, several parents told the Star-Telegram they liked the level of live interaction this year’s classes offer.
“It really is like they’re in school,” Menchaca said.
New online model
Menchaca and her husband have two kids in the district. Their daughter is a fourth-grader at Burton Hill Elementary School, and their son is a seventh-grader at Stripling Middle School. Menchaca appreciated how well teachers prepared students for the first day of school. Some teachers used the Bitmoji app to create animated virtual classrooms. Others created videos introducing themselves to their students. That preparation helped her kids feel more at ease as they went into the school year, she said.
There were some tech issues on the first day, she said, especially in the first few hours as she and her kids were getting everything set up. She worried that she and her husband, each of whom works from home for part of the week, would be constantly pulled away from their own work to help their kids with online classes. But so far, the new classes have been simple enough that her kids can navigate them on their own, she said.
Fort Worth ISD is scheduled to allow students to come back to school in person on Oct. 5, although district officials have said that date may change. Once the district returns in person, families will choose between in-person or online classes.
When the district shut down its buildings last March, it adopted the online education platform Edgenuity for its remote classes. Edgenuity presented students with a computer-generated list of lessons, which included pre-recorded lecture videos, short tasks and longer assignments. Students had to complete each lesson before moving on to the next. They were expected to complete one lesson per class, per week, and they were graded on a pass-fail basis.
Not many teachers or students liked the platform. Students didn’t have much live interaction with their teachers, and if a student struggled to understand a concept, there was no good way for teachers to go back and re-teach it.
This year, district officials promised a better model for distance learning. Calling it “Virtual 2.0,” Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Kent Scribner said students would get daily instruction from their teachers and would be graded on a traditional A-F scale. New Texas Education Agency guidelines require districts to offer students four hours of live instruction per day. Fort Worth teachers are also holding virtual office hours for any student who needs extra help.
Under the new model, pre-K teachers use a platform called Seesaw. All other grades use Google Classroom. The classes more closely mirror what happens in a typical classroom. Rather than having students go through videos and computer-generated tasks, teachers in the district teach their classes in much the same way as they would normally, but they do so via video chat instead of face to face.
The district spent several weeks over the summer training teachers on how to teach using the new model. The district also released a series of videos on social media designed to help parents and students get ready for the new year.
Teachers better trained
Joceline Garcia said she doesn’t think even high-quality online classes can be as effective as in-person learning. But at a time when it’s dangerous for large numbers of people to be in a room together, Garcia thinks the classes the district rolled out this year are a good way to keep everyone safe.
Garcia has two daughters at T.A. Sims Elementary School, one in third grade and the other in fourth. She said she’s particularly worried about the possibility of sending the girls back to school in person because one of them has asthma. She’s read that children are less likely to become severely ill if they catch COVID-19, but she knows her daughter’s condition could put her at greater risk if she did catch it.
The difference between last year’s online classes and the ones her daughter started this year is huge, Garcia said. Last year, the technology was new and it seemed like parents, teachers and students were all confused about how the system was supposed to work, she said. This year, the online classes seem better organized and teachers seem better trained on how to teach and keep students engaged remotely, she said.
Johanna Hernandez said she’s pleased with the online learning system the district is using this year. Her daughter, a kindergartner at North Hi Mount Elementary School, went to a private school for pre-K last year, so Hernandez couldn’t compare the district’s new platform to the one it used last year. But the system her daughter’s private school used mostly included pre-recorded videos. Students only got to interact with their teachers during two 30-minute sessions each week, Hernandez said.
This year, Hernandez’s daughter starts school on Google Meet each day at 8:15 a.m. The first session of the day lasts until about 10:30, when the class breaks for lunch. The teacher stays online for a few minutes after the class session ends to help parents with any tech issues. In the afternoon, students come back online for music, physical education and art.
Hernandez said she’s pleased to see how much live interaction her daughter gets with her teacher and other students. It can be hard for kindergartners to spend that much time in front of a screen, she said, but her daughter’s teacher does a good job of noticing when students get distracted. When that happens, the class takes a short break to stretch before getting back to school work.
That live interaction has its own challenges — Hernandez wishes there were a way for the teacher to block students from unmuting themselves during Google calls — but it also allows her daughter to engage with her teacher and get feedback, she said.
Sending her daughter back to school in person won’t be a possibility for a while, she said. Hernandez is immune-compromised, so she and her husband take every precaution to make sure neither of them brings the virus home. That will include keeping her daughter at home and doing virtual learning even after the district allows students to come back in person, she said.
The online classes aren’t a perfect solution, Hernandez said. She knows the kinds of social interactions that build emotional bonds between teachers and their students are more effortless in person than they are even in a well-planned online setting. But she’s impressed with how her daughter’s teacher is working to build those bonds in spite of challenging circumstances.
“In-person would definitely be better suited for that,” Hernandez said. “But given the situation and the constraints that we have, I feel like she’s been wonderful.”
This story was originally published September 13, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
