In the diverse and expansive Washington region, around 40 percent of the roughly 700,000 public school students are learning at least once a week in a school building. The other 420,000 students have been entirely remote since the coronavirus pandemic closed schools in March 2020, according to data from the region’s school systems.
The percentage of students reporting to a classroom in the two school districts that are majority Black and low-income — D.C. Public Schools and Prince George’s County Public Schools — is even lower, with just 28 percent of students learning in person part of the week.
Across the Potomac River, Arlington has the highest population of students learning in person — nearly 60 percent at the end of May. Sixty-nine percent of White students are learning in-person, but just 41 percent of Black students have returned.
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Nationally, in-person learning has been steadily on the rise. By March, 61 percent of students across the country were enrolled in hybrid or full-time in-person learning, according to federal data focused on fourth- and eighth-graders. But across the country, school districts are reporting that low-income families of color were least likely to return to school buildings. These families often live in neighborhoods that have been hit hard by the virus, and where trust in schools and government institutions is low and health outcomes are poor.
Physical distancing requirements also limited the number of students schools could serve. And some schools could not bring in enough staff before vaccinations were widely available.
For some parents in D.C., child care was an obstacle because the city has not provided before- or after-school care, and in-person learning schedules were limited and inconsistent from school to school. As a result, some families who might otherwise want to return chose not to.
In the District, students from more affluent families make up a disproportionate number of those who have returned, according to city data.
In the D.C. public school system, 45 percent of students — or 23,157 of the school system’s 52,000 students — are considered at risk, which means they are homeless, in foster care, their families qualify for public assistance, or they are high school students at least one year older than the standard age for their grade level. But just 4,960 at-risk students are attending in-person schooling at least once a week — around 20 percent of that population, even though these students have been prioritized for getting in-person learning slots.
The D.C. school system said schools will spend the next few months hosting community-building events, knocking on doors and holding telephone drives to connect with families and promote vaccinations and in-person learning.
The District’s charter schools, which educate more than 40 percent of the city’s public school population, have reported similar in-person learning numbers. Some schools are still entirely virtual because, their leaders say, demand to return wasn’t high enough. Others have just small portions of their students back in buildings.
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“We have put up no barriers to return,” said Kathy Lane, chief of Children’s Guild Alliance, which has a charter school serving a high-needs population in D.C. in which just 25 percent of students have returned to in-person learning. “Because we serve a high population of students with disabilities, we have very small class sizes. We have the capacity to bring back as many kids as want to come back, and our families are hesitant to do so.”
Some parents point out that many “in-person” learners have very limited class time. In the D.C. school system, middle- and high-schoolers are not allowed to switch classes during the day, so many are in school only a few hours a week. Across the region, many students in classrooms are still learning on their laptops.
Families in some areas have been pushing school systems to do more. For months, a group of vocal parents in Montgomery County have accused the school system of dragging its feet and failing to get students back into classrooms — soon enough and frequently enough. Montgomery began bringing students back in March and April.
The data showing 41 percent of students going in person part-time does not reflect the true experience, said Jennifer Reesman, a leader in the parents organization Montgomery County Families for Education and Accountability.
Many students will end the year with 25 or fewer days of in-person school and have teachers they have yet to meet in person, she maintained.
“Most of those kids don’t have a good healthy routine,” she said. “They are not going into their school buildings on a weekly basis, and they are still tied to their Chromebooks. You can say 41 percent, but these are not children going to school every day, every week.”
Montgomery school leaders have said they have worked to accommodate families who chose to have students return but that the issue is complex in a system of 161,000 students. There are issues of space, disruption and staffing that come with shifting student assignments, said Gboyinde Onijala, spokeswoman for the school system. Fewer than 350 students remain on waiting lists.
[Racial disparities in who is returning to D.C. classrooms put equity spotlight on reopening]
Prince George’s has not faced the same major outcry from parents. School system CEO Monica E. Goldson opted for all-virtual learning last summer, in a widely supported move, then stuck with the approach through spring.
Prince George’s has had more coronavirus cases than any county in Maryland.
The reopening of county schools followed pressure from Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who insisted that Maryland school systems make good-faith efforts to bring students back. If they did not, his administration would “explore every legal avenue at our disposal,” he said.
Nearly 37,000 Prince George’s students — in a system of more than 131,000 — headed back in April, leaving more than 70 percent of students still learning virtually.
And in Northern Virginia, the major school systems returned between a third to a half of their student bodies over the course of the spring semester.
As of late May, roughly half of all students were learning in-person in Fairfax County Public Schools, whose 180,000 students make it Virginia’s largest district, and in the 16,000-strong Alexandria City Public Schools system. Loudoun County Public Schools had returned 38 percent of its 81,000 enrollees, and Arlington Public Schools had returned the highest portion: almost 60 percent of its 23,000 students.
But the extent of in-person learning opportunities varies widely between districts.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shrank the recommended social distance inside classrooms from 6 feet to 3 feet, Fairfax and Loudoun counties upped the number of days of in-person learning they were offering students, going from two to four each week. But both districts kept the total number of students learning in-person the same, based on the results of surveys officials had administered to parents months before, at a time when vaccinations were less widely available and coronavirus cases and deaths were spiking.
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That stirred criticism from some who argued that parents might make a different choice — selecting in-person rather than online instruction — if they were asked again, or given the chance to switch.
Arlington and Alexandria, by contrast, expanded the number of students learning inside classrooms, while keeping the number of days of in-person learning the same.
Alexandria Schools Superintendent Gregory C. Hutchings Jr. defended his school district’s strategy — and decision not to offer four full days of instruction, despite parent pressure — by arguing it was important to give “as many families as possible” a shot at face-to-face instruction.
Suzanne Garwood took advantage of Arlington’s late willingness to add more students to the classroom rolls. Her son Connor, a high school senior who has Down syndrome, hated learning online and posted each morning on social media about how much he missed his friends.
But the family did not want to send either of their two children back for in-person learning until they were vaccinated. So when Arlington officials asked Garwood to indicate a preferred learning style for the spring semester, she chose virtual.
Just after spring break, fully vaccinated, Connor returned to school.
“It was really the vaccine,” she said. “There was nothing Arlington could have done that would have been enough to convince us.”
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