Virtual class now a reality for thousands of Hoover kids

Nearly 13,000 students enrolled in Hoover public schools are finding themselves learning from home for the last two months of the school year, thanks to the COVID-19 disease that has wreaked havoc around the world.

The 1,100 or so seniors at Hoover and Spain Park high schools officially finished with classes for the year in mid-March and were considered graduated, but the remainder of students are receiving instruction online or through packets sent home by teachers. That will continue through May 22, the official last day of school for Hoover students this school year.

Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy said while having all students learn from home is not ideal, she’s excited that children at least were able to get back to learning after a three-week break.

The Hoover school district has been preparing for broader online learning for a long time, Murphy said. All students in grades 3-12 have Chromebooks and are accustomed to the digital platforms they are now using at home, she said. Some students were already taking advantage of complete online instruction, but now it is just being done on a much bigger scale for almost all students, she said.

The problem is that some students don’t have internet access at home. About 3.5% of students — slightly fewer than 500 — indicated they lacked either an internet connection or electronic device at home, said Ron Dodson, a school system administrator who coordinated instructional efforts to close out the year.

Hoover school officials shared information about how parents can obtain free or low-cost internet and WiFi access through private companies, and the system deployed eight school buses equipped with WiFi to various apartment complexes to serve as WiFi hotspots for children.

Other students were given the option of receiving physical packets of educational materials put together by their teachers and available for parents to pick up at school periodically. Take-home packets also are being used for K-2 students, Dodson said.

Students aren’t expected to sit at a computer and do livestream classes with their teacher and fellow classmates the entire school day. There will be some live streaming happening, but teachers were encouraged to come up with alternate instruction plans as well, he said. That includes recorded video lessons that allow students to view the lesson at different times, as well as assignments that students complete on their own.

Dodson said school officials realize that the whole world essentially is working online right now, and that bandwidth capacity and data packages vary.

Students have ways to communicate with their teachers if they need help, and teachers were encouraged to make telephone contact with students, Dodson said. There is still something to be said for that human element of interaction.

Teachers were given a lot of leeway in how they design their instruction, Dodson said.

However, students in grades K-8 will not get grades on the traditional A-F or numbered grading scale. Instead, they will either pass or fail, depending on whether they show they can meet curriculum standards, he said.

“Students this spring won’t take their typical standardized tests approved by the state, and there will be fewer traditional-style tests as well,” Dodson said.

Parents aren’t bringing a lot of paperwork back to the school because school officials are trying to minimize the amount of materials that must be physically transferred to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 disease, he said.

All sports and arts performances, such as band and choir concerts, were canceled for the year, but the academic side of arts instruction was to continue, Dodson said.

Unfortunately, it was too difficult to carry on with some of the more hands-on instructional classes, such as many of those offered at the Riverchase Career Connection Center, Dodson said.

“You can’t virtually hammer,” he said, referencing the Skilled Trades Academy. “I do feel bad for the seniors especially,” he said. “At least they had three-fourths of a year.”

Younger students hopefully can make up for any missed instruction on those kinds of classes when they return the next school year, he said.

As of press time, the principals at Hoover and Spain Park high schools had not yet decided whether to have an official graduation ceremony. That will depend on the weather and how things unfold with the COVID-19 disease, Dodson said.