VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Students and parents in Virginia Beach are getting their first look at their schedules for the upcoming school year.
Sara Gettings has a daughter in 1st grade and she said she noticed how the example schedules for students show virtual learning days as long as in-person classes are during a normal school year.
“I was very happy with it,” she said. “I don’t think it’ll be any trouble for us at all."
However, the district’s Chief Schools Officer, Dr. Donald Robertson, said he's heard otherwise from other people.
“We’ve definitely heard concerns of not only the families in this environment, but also from our staff in this environment who also have children,” said Robertson.
The main concern is over daycare, mostly questioning how will parents or teachers who work, manage the packed virtual school schedule.
Robertson said the length of the virtual school day is the same as in-person days during a regular school year, but there is a difference.
For example: in a 75-minute learning block, the online classes will only go for 45 minutes at the secondary level and 30 minutes at the elementary level.
The remaining time is left open for students to ask teachers questions and to help parents and staff, the school is looking at opening a sort of daycare called “safe learning centers.”
Robertson said the details around those are still in the works.
“We absolutely will be doing everything we possibly can to mitigate those anxieties, by providing the best possible learning environment with the most possible support for their children, because their success is our success,” said Robertson.
In the meantime, the president of the Virginia Beach Education Association, Kelly Walker, said some teachers are just as shocked as parents with the new schedules.
“We are concerned that there is just a little bit of time; there’s only two weeks between now and the start of school and what this means for families especially families with daycare and how this will look,” said Walker.
“I guess we’re caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to dealing with these changes,” Walker added. “As the employees who have to do this big lift, we just ask for a lot of patience from the community and the changes that are taking place, that’s hard on us too.”