Up until now, most discussions of remote learning have focused on student access at home. With the pandemic still raging, and the new school year about to start, few schools are planning for a return to fully traditional, in-class instruction. Remote learning in full or in hybrid mode is a more likely scenario for most schools at least through the 2020 fall semester.
Many schools are beginning to realize that whatever may have worked — often with hard work and with impressive success — on a short-term basis last spring, when most students and their parents were quarantined at home, may not work as the economy begins to reopen and parents return to work outside their homes. At-home remote learning may no longer be feasible for many students. If these students can’t be in a classroom every day, and must participate remotely, where will that be? Will there be adequate Internet access? And most importantly, will it be safe and supervised?
An answer we’re hearing to these questions is often “day care.” But traditional day care, focusing on younger children and facing its own COVID-related problems, is unlikely to be the answer for dealing with a flood of older K-12 students requiring properly-distanced workspaces to support full-day remote learning (and support services including supervision, technology, meals, etc.). Putting aside private pandemic “pods,” as discussed in a recent New York Times Op-Ed, schools have two basic options.
- In-school remote learning facilities. This seemingly oxymoron-like approach recognizes that while socially-distanced classrooms hold less students, most schools have other larger capacity spaces — gyms, auditoriums, cafeterias, etc. — that could support other students attending classes “remotely” while still being supervised and supported within their schools.
- Non-school remote learning centers. With ongoing pandemic restrictions on social gathering, many large venue facilities — community centers, theaters, convention centers, churches, etc. — remain unused or under-utilized and (with proper staffing) could be used as remote learning centers. Use of such facilities raise financial, technical and potential regulatory issues. In particular:
- Rental (hopefully modest in community-based facilities) and configuration costs must be addressed. CARES 2.0 legislation, with substantial school support remains pending but, if enacted, would hopefully not preclude funding of such facilities.
- WiFi capacity will likely need to be boosted with higher Internet bandwidth, mobile hotspots, and/or additional cloud-managed WAPs.
- To maximize E-rate flexibility, states may wish to formally designate such facilities as schools or annexes at least on an interim basis.