Maryland school systems hastily prepare to feed, teach students, grapple with equipment, proms

By Nia Fitzhugh, India Wise and Noah Reem
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers

More than two dozen Maryland school districts have struggled to launch or maintain online learning with the nearly 890,000 K-12 students hunkered down at home while state and federal officials battle deadly infections from the coronavirus pandemic.

On Friday, State Superintendent of Schools Karen Salmon announced that school closures will extend until May 15. She stressed that state and local officials will use the time to determine how best to proceed until the official end of school June 15.

“This is one of those decisions we need to make incrementally,” Salmon said in defense of not closing for the entire year as nearby Washington, D.C. schools decided to do. “We’ll take it little by little.”

While educators are tasked with teaching, administrators distribute equipment to needy homes and staff collect, prepare and distribute nutritious meals to hungry children.

“I think our  parents, students, and staff are doing the best they can given the situation,” said Kari Clow, principal of Chapel District Elementary School in Cordova. “I think our teachers and staff have gone above and beyond to reach out to all of our families as well as individual students we have been concerned about.”

Clow said that several grade levels as well as the staff  do weekly Google meetings.

The principal added that the Talbot County Public School System has done an amazing job with important assignments such as meal distribution and accommodating students who do not have access to the Internet. Schools also provide shelter to students whose parents are essential workers, she added.

As COVID-19 began to spread across the state, all public schools were closed in mid- March with initial plans to reopen on March 27. That idea was dropped, and a new April 24 date was set. Salmon announced the extension at Gov. Larry Hogan’s press conference.

State and local officials have been “working 24/7 to ensure there was a laser-light focus on providing continuity of learning to all students regardless of the amount of time we are out of school,” Salmon told a recent virtual meeting of school officials.

Confirmed cases of coronavirus number 11,572 with 425 deaths. Hogan said that Maryland is now able to plan the gradual rollout of the state’s recovery phase amid “very real reasons for hope and optimism.” However he outlined four things that must happen first, including expanding testing capacity and ramping up supply of equipment.

Since announcing the closure, Salmon said officials have served almost 4 million meals. In the first week, officials served 440,000 meals at 140 sites. Recently, Salmon said more than 1.3 million meals were served at more than 600 sites, after the state was provided with federal funding to assist with school’s meal distribution programs.

“We are learning a lot as we develop these plans, as no effort of this scale has ever been attempted in the history of our state’s school system,” Salmon said.

The Calvert County School District provides grab ’n go meals at four sites, as well as counseling, social work and special education services to students and families.

To continue the learning process, the school district has created a weekly schedule by subject through the learning management system “Schoology.” Special education teachers have created individualized plans for students with disabilities learning in a digital environment.

“Teachers are being very flexible with students and working to provide social, emotional, and academic support,” said Catherine Page, supervisor of Accountability and Public Information Office.

The online learning platform Schoology was founded in 2009 by Jeremy Friedman, Ryan Hwang and Tim Trinidad, during their senior year at Washington University in St. Louis. According to Forbes magazine, the online learning platform allows teachers to organize lessons through a suite of features that help educators manage and enhance their lesson plans. In addition, the learning platform allows instructors to collaborate with students through discussions, videos and interactive media. 

For access, teachers sign up for individual Schoology subscriptions and grant access to students through access codes. The Department of Information Technology for Calvert County helps families that do not have access to online resources with low-cost Internet services information, as well as public hotspots. Students unable to access any of the resources have the option to complete paper packets, officials said.

In addition to Calvert County, Frederick and Baltimore counties have adopted the learning platform while other counties have opted to use Google Classroom. According to the Sacramento Business Journal, in 2019, Schoology was acquired by PowerSchool, a leading K-12 education technology company. The learning platform claims more than 20 million users and 60,000 schools.

Howard County also has made major adjustments following the closure of schools. Principals and teachers provide meals in 10 areas for students under the age of 18.

 “We have provided over 250,000 meals since schools have closed,” said Principal John DiPaula of Hammond High School. “All students, 18 years old and younger, can get grab and go bags with lunch, dinner, snack, and breakfast. This will continue as long as schools are closed.”

As far as online learning, teachers upload educational content to canvas by 9 a.m. on Mondays and students are required to complete the work and turn it in by 10 a.m. Friday. Each school also provides laptops for each student.

“We are providing Dell laptops to every student in the county that requests one,” DiPaula said. “We are issuing from the laptop carts at school and we HCPSS order 20,000 additional laptops. We also ordered several thousand hot spots to issue to families, but they are on backorder.”

Joliene Danielson, a teacher from Atholton Elementary School in Columbia, emphasized the importance of properly distributing equipment to the school students.

“They will first go to high school students in need of a device because their learning will begin more quickly than that of middle and elementary school,” said Danielson. “More devices are being delivered as they become available. Hot spots and other ways for Internet service are being explored for families lacking that service.”

Amid distributing equipment and organizing food distributions, DiPaula has the added task of deciding about the prom and graduation.

“I have moved prom from April until May, however this probably isn’t going to happen, so we have to wait and see,” said DiPaula. “Our superintendent is meeting with a group of seniors to get their ideas for year-end celebrations. We have to wait until schools are reopened as well as restrictions are lifted from the state.

DiPaula cautioned that “even if we went back to school, the governor still might be banning large gatherings”.

Graduation last year had somewhere between 4,000-5,000 people, he said. “The point is that we will wait and see, but we will do something to celebrate our students. Honestly, we just don’t know what, when and where.”

Both DiPaula and Danielson stressed that Howard County had an emergency plan but noted it did not cover a COVID-19 pandemic.

“As a public school, we are bound to provide a free and public education to all students under our care,” they said. “We cannot make decisions that leave out any child.”

Baltimore County Public Schools recently announced that students can continue learning during the state-mandated closure of schools by viewing teacher-produced instructional content every Wednesday through Thursday on the BCPS-TV. The programming is aired on Channel 73 on Comcast Xfinity and Channel 34 on Verizon FiOS in Baltimore County and on the school system’s YouTube channel.

 
“As this period of school closure was extended, we knew we wanted to exhaust every avenue to reach children,” said Megan Shay, executive director of English Language Arts PreK-12 for BCPS. 
 
The first week’s programming focused on English language arts, mathematics, and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Programs vary in length from 10 – 22 minutes. Each week, the schedule is updated and features additional subjects such as science, health, and fine arts. Health and physical education teachers are creating taped mini-exercise and stretch routines. The schedules for each week are shared via social media

Before the state superintendent’s announcement, Talbot County Public Schools over on the Eastern shore was planning  to reopen on April 27. Superintendent Kelly Griffith said that the county is proceeding extremely well with the continuity of learning, despite being given only a week to plan.

Griffith, who was appointed superintendent six years ago, said the county has set up meal sites and shelters for children of essential workers, cleaned and sanitized buildings, provided 1,700 iPad for students, and identified the essential standards that must be included in the continuity of learning.

“Each student can receive three meals plus a snack daily,” Griffith said. “They also get a care pack for weekend meals.”

Griffith added that students in kindergarten to fifth grade are provided iPad to complete homework, while students in grades sixth through 12 are provided with laptops. To combat any issues regarding students not having Internet access, Griffith said the county has been sending to homes packets with work each week.

In addition, he said that students can reach guidance counselors with any questions regarding issues related to school and mental health.

Griffith added that both high school graduations and proms are still scheduled. Prom will be held  in April with graduation set for June. Hopeful as this may be, Griffith said the reopening of schools and continuation of events is not up to the school board.

“The only ones that can reopen schools are the Maryland Health Department and state superintendent,” Griffith said.

Clow of  Chapel District Elementary School, said that she sends weekly communications to parents through the Smore platform, a weekly newsletter.

“I also do daily Facebook posts and send birthday cards to students who have birthdays during our time off,” said Clow. “Teachers call every student in their homeroom to check in and see if their parents preferred online work or mailed work.”

“I know everyone is anxiously awaiting our return to school,” Clow said.

Salmon said she is sensitive to those who are optimistic about opening schools.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen, and I certainly don’t want to dash the hopes of many children and parents that there might be some other ways to do public school going forward,” Salmon said at the governor’s press conference Friday. “That’s the reason I decided to” extend the closure date so officials can further discuss what to do between May 15 and June 15.