Coronavirus Update: San Francisco Bay Area Students, Teachers Struggle With Remote Online Learning
PITTSBURG (CBS SF) - Schools are shuttered for the remainder of this academic year in the San Francisco Bay Area, but are the kids getting the education they need to move up to the next grade with remote online instruction?
Changes may be coming. Some school systems have discussed options transitioning to more of a year-round schedule or possibly coming back early from summer break. Those options though come with major hurdles and teachers might just have to rely on second best.
Todd Whitmire, a Principal from Pittsburg High School, admits online learning has its disadvantages.
"It's not the same as being in a brick and mortar and we are not selling it as that," Whitmire said. "If we had our choice, we would be back in school but we are not."
With the unprecedented stay-at-home order to slow the spread of COVID 19, educators had to act quickly to set up school online. But Whitmire said something is lost remotely teaching. Still he can't see his school making major changes to its schedule to make up for lost time away from the classroom.
"I don't know if it's feasible to go back and make up the last month of the school year, it's not," Whitmire said.
So how much will your child miss by not being in a classroom? It maybe hard to measure but Pittsburg High is prepared to re-teach some of the lessons next year.
"I think there is work we will have to do to review in the fall, retracing concepts they need to get to the next level," Whitmire said.
While Whitmire is confident his kids will catch up but it's not the math, language or social studies that he's concerned about.
"I worry much more with the social emotional piece with the kids, being in isolation away from their friends," he said.
As for maybe using summer school as the time to make up in class instruction, Whitmire says that's unlikely. The Pittsburg Unified School District hasn't officially canceled yet but he thinks the probability is really high that it will happen.
