- The Washington Times - Thursday, July 16, 2020

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Thursday that she is delaying her decision on how D.C. Public Schools will operate this fall, but added that an online-only option will be available for all students.

Miss Bowser postponed until next Friday a decision on the DCPS fall schedule after the District experienced some trends in the coronavirus data that were “not ideal” for making plans for the upcoming school year.

For the first time since early May, the city’s transmission rate of the virus has risen above 1 and remained there for the last couple of days.The transmission rate is an estimate of the number of people who will become infected by each positive coronavirus case, according to the D.C. Department of Health. Officials cite a transmission rate of less than 1 for five consecutive days as a condition for moving to the next phase of reopening.

“It means that on the 31st, depending on health indicators, we could decide that we are only going to be able to start the school year virtually and may move throughout the school year to another option,” Miss Bowser during a press conference.

“It may mean that we have determined that the trends we have seen for the last week don’t persist, and we are able to offer an all virtual option or a hybrid option where the students would come in on the various days you just saw and learn virtually for the balance of the week,” she added.

DCPS Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee on Thursday presented learning options for families to choose if the mayor decides that schools can reopen for in-person learning.

Parents can opt for online-only instruction or a combination of online and in-person learning that places students in small groups, or cohorts, to limit their potential exposure to the virus.

For pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade students, the first cohort will have in-person lessons Mondays and Tuesdays, and the second cohort will have face-to-face instruction on Thursdays and Fridays. Both cohorts will have online instruction on Wednesdays, when schools will undergo a deep cleaning.

For middle and high school students, each of four cohorts will spend one day a week in school, and Wednesdays will be used for deep cleaning.

DCPS officials said they will guarantee all requests for online-only instruction, which is not an option for pre-kindergarteners, and will try to accommodate requests for the hybrid option, which depends on staffing capacity. Schools have been closed since mid-March.

Mr. Ferebee said DCPS is asking families to commit to either option for the first term of the school year, which ends in October, adding that it would be complicated to transition from the only-only option to the hybrid option.

Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn said that each charter school is authorized to make its own schedule but that many charter school leaders have told him they want to work on the same schedule as traditional public schools.

Miss Bowser said it is “premature” to say whether teachers will be able to opt out of in-person instruction, adding that they will be able to use COVID-19-related medical leave.

She said the Trump administration’s insistence on in-person learning “has no impact on our decision.”We are driven by this value, that is, that children do better in person, face-to-face with teachers in their school buildings with their peers,” she said. “So we have worked very hard to make sure we have options available for families where that can happen as long as our experience with the pandemic allows it.”

DCPS will be the last school district in the region to finalize its plan for learning in the fall.

Schools in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties will start their academic year with online-only learning. Fairfax County and Loudoun County schools are offering an online-only option and a hybrid option of in-person and online instruction.

Arlington County Public Schools originally announced a hybrid plan of online and in-person instruction, along with an online-only option. But criticism from teachers and parents and an uptick in new coronavirus cases in the county prompted Superintendent Francisco Durán to propose a plan for online-only learning and delay the start of school by a week.

The school board was to vote on Mr. Durán’s plan Thursday night.

• Sophie Kaplan can be reached at skaplan@washingtontimes.com.

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