Leon County Schools officially welcomed back about 15,000 students for in-person learning this morning.
With the sun barely peeking out, Superintendent Rocky Hanna checked in at Godby High School in the morning to greet students as they got off the bus to start the school year.
“So far so good, so far so good,” the Superintendent said as the last wave of students stepped off the buses.
For the superintendent, conditions created by COVID-19 have led to the district serving two different student populations:
“You know, the challenge is we’re basically running two independent school systems – one with 15,000 children that will be in our schools, brick-and-mortar, as our buses dropped them off just now, and then 15,000 children right now that are firing up devices to log into their classes,” Hanna said. “So, the logistics of getting ready for that presented the greatest challenge of my career.”
Only about 200 bus riders were brought to Godby Monday morning. A bus attendant told media in a typical year, that number can be as high as 900 on a given day.
Hanna says having lower density on buses can help with safety measures:
“Our ridership will probably be between 30 and 40 percent of what it normally is, which allows these kids to social distance more on the buses.”
Based on what he’s seen of students on the first morning back on campus, Hanna’s confident they will follow all the safety measures in place.
“Social distancing on buses, sanitizing and disinfecting the buses in between runs,” he described the efforts. “Our teachers have kits in their classroom. And you can see every student, right now, they all have masks on. People said, ‘Don’t do it, the kids won’t respect the mask policy’ – They will.
“I started my career here at Godby High School in 1989, over 30 years ago – and I’ve learned, if you ask of kids and say, ‘these are the expectations,’ they’ll do it.”
For students using distance learning, the district has set up a IT call center to field questions about how to log in and set up district-issued devices. That presents a challenge of its own, says the superintendent.
“Those are going to be the kinks that we have to work through the first week, to ensure that those kids have the cameras activated, that they can log into their classes,” Hanna said.
