What will Beaufort County schools’ hybrid classes will look like? 4 principals explain
As Beaufort County School District begins hybrid instruction on Oct. 5, things will look very different from school to school — and that’s intentional, according to district officials.
The basics will look the same across buildings: Students will be divided by last name into “A” or “B” day groups, going to school buildings two days a week, remaining home for virtual instruction on Wednesdays and attending school online for the remaining two days.
The district has released guidelines on classroom safety and what will happen if a COVID-19 case is reported.
Wednesdays will look similar to what students are doing now for online classes.
What’s unclear is what will take place on the two days a week that hybrid students are online rather than in classrooms.
“Those other two days, quite frankly, will vary across schools and across the entire district,” deputy superintendent Duke Bradley said Thursday. “We just don’t think it is particularly useful or effective for us to over-prescribe to our schools what those two days should be.”
Instead, the district will be “firm on the what” — five days per week of instruction that extends into students’ online class days and meets the state minimum of instructional minutes — and “flexible on the how,” Bradley said.
The district will release a guide to hybrid instruction, and each district school will post detailed building guides on their individual websites.
Here’s how four area schools are handling hybrid instruction, according to their principals:
Robert Smalls International Academy
For a pre-kindergarten through 8th grade school such as Robert Smalls, hybrid classes will look “vastly different” across the building — but each grade level is coming up with a unified plan for consistent instruction across classrooms, principal Celestine LaVan said.
“For early childhood classrooms, that could look like pre-recorded sessions on Seesaw, where the student is front-loaded with information,” LaVan said.
She explained: Students who learned online on Monday and Tuesday would get vocabulary and skills information ahead of new instruction on Wednesday, when the whole class is learning online.
On Thursday and Friday, students in the classroom could complete mini-lessons, independent activities and instruction.
Students will also have the opportunity to receive individual services — such as acceleration classes, English language instruction, special education services or remediation — on the days they’re learning online, LaVan said.
Depending on the level of services a student receives, he or she might get individual instruction on-campus with follow-up off-campus.
“That’s why it’s not a curricular box program, or a standard answer for any of us,” LaVan said. “We’re going to meet the needs of our students and use this to be creative and flexible in meeting those needs.”
Hilton Head Island Middle School
While teachers at Hilton Head Island Middle School teach their in-person classes, “the other half of the alphabet” will still be in class.
They’ll be watching through Zoom on the schools’ Mimio smart boards, which have webcam capabilities, according to principal Pat Freda.
“They can give the teacher availability to walk around the classroom and teach live classes, but the students who are at home can zoom in and hear and see that teacher instructing,” Freda said.
Students following from the board will be able to raise their hands or unmute to ask questions, letting them participate in in-person classes while they learn remotely.
Teachers will teach a different lesson each weekday rather than repeating lessons for separate student groups.
Pritchardville Elementary School
Like Hilton Head Island Middle, Pritchardville Elementary have students Zooming into classrooms on their “online” days.
“Our teachers are very creative with what they’re doing now,” Blue said. “They’ve come together to look at how they might adapt to support students who may not be on campus while addressing the needs of students here.”
On virtual Wednesdays, students will log on to a familiar virtual class setup: They’ll have morning meetings, mini-lessons and rotations of independent work and small-group check-ins with teachers.
Specialists will be able to give support throughout the day to students with individualized education plans.
“Our goal is to keep the learning moving forward five days,” principal Brenda Blue said.
Red Cedar Elementary School
“If parents are expecting to tune in and sit in and watch what’s going on in a Zoom and expect to see an hour and a half lecture from a teacher, they’re tuning into the wrong decade,” principal Kathleen Corley said.
In general, teachers should be giving a “mini-lesson” that’s about 15 minutes long and then following up with “gradual release,” Corley said, meaning that students will have time to absorb the lesson and work on projects related to the material with guidance from their teachers.
Students will be kept in one classroom whenever possible, per the district’s COVID-19 policy, which means lunch and “special” classes such as music, art and physical education will look different.
In Corley’s building, music and technology teachers will come to classrooms for lessons. PE and dance teachers will not.
However, students will still be able to go outside — the school just got two outdoor classrooms installed, with canopy tent-like heat shields to keep students safe from the sun.
Corley said that she hopes parents will encourage their students to be excited about changes and willing to adapt, rather than “mourning” the loss of previous forms of instruction.
““I think we have to kind of leave the flowers at the altar and then move on to whatever’s next, because it’s a new adventure,” Corley said. “It’s a new opportunity.”