LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A step closer to getting back to normal for Clark County School District schools. Starting Tuesday, kids in all grade levels will get the chance to go back to the classroom and learn with elementary schools returning to five days a week face-to-face learning. Some parents are thrilled to see their kids go back, while others say the new schedules will create challenges for some families.
Expect to see more kids back on CCSD campuses starting Tuesday. It’s a day Amber Graham has been waiting for where all of her kids are able to get back into the classroom after struggling with distance learning.
“My kids are mostly good students so doing the distance learning, I think it’s harder for them to take it seriously.”
She says her third-grade daughter and sixth-grade son are already doing hybrid learning and noticed they much preferred being in a classroom. Graham expects the same for her eighth-grade son and believes in-person learning is more beneficial.
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“I think it’s more stimulating for them and I’m hoping to get them off screens because that’s not good for them,” she said.
It’s a different matter for Ariel Davis who says her fifth-grade daughter is reluctant to go back to five days a week in the classroom with all of the changes.
“The teachers would not be able to get up and move around the classroom and they would no longer have recess so it’s pretty scary for an active child that socializes during recess,” she said.
Davis says she also has a daughter who’s a high school sophomore. As a working mother, the different schedules between schools makes it difficult for her to pick up her kids.
“Two different hybrid learning schedules, so for parents that have multiple children, that’s the caveat that the school district didn’t take into consideration," Davis said.
She would like to see CCSD have contingency plans in place to better fit the needs of different students, like improving distance learning.
“We don’t know how corona will change or continue to change us as a population, so we need to be equipped and prepared,” David said.
Graham says giving a choice to parents in the future would be ideal.
“We should have the choice to have our kids in school if that’s our choice and the people who want to keep their kids’ home, they have that choice,” she said.
“I’m looking forward to seeing some of my students for the first time ever. They’ve been nothing but small dots on my Google Meet.”
Reuben D’Silva, a history teacher at Rancho High School has been waiting to welcome his juniors back into the classroom for more than a year with the pandemic pushing them into remote learning. He believes this is a big step forward.
“A bit of that normalcy re-instilled in our lives has been a great sort of thing for us teachers.”
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D’Silva says class size has not been an issue so far for him with only a handful of freshmen doing hybrid learning and the rest of his students remote learning. He does think with just several weeks left of school the summer will be crucial in making new plans.
“We as an entire district and an entire education community reassess where we’ll move forward from this moment. It will be a good breakpoint for us,” he said.
He says the declining virus numbers and a growing number of people getting vaccine shots have him hopeful about the next school year.
“I think that we have a very good possibility that we’ll be having full-on school, fully open schools come this fall,” D’Silva said.
Superintendent Jesus Jara has said CCSD is working on making remote learning an option for parents to choose in the next school year.
