Manatee Schools District to Discuss, May Eliminate Hybrid School Option
The Manatee County School District began the 2020-2021 school year by offering three options.
In person, five days a week on campus, full online classes or the third choice, a hybrid schedule that rotates students between online and in-person classes. The school district told families at the end of each quarter, they would be able to change their school option", if they would like. fa
Last Thursday (108/20) at the school board meeting, Superintendent Cynthia Saunders recommended they remove the hybrid option. It is the least utilized of the three options and does require additional time and staff to manage
In terms of numbers, there is less interest in the hybrid option than online or in person classes (with a hybrid enrollment of just over 7,000 students) there are over 14,000 full time e-learners, & over 20,000 attending in-person classes).
Saunders says it is hard to create and schedule classes for a small number of students, especially when educators were already spread thin between the students who attend in-person or online classes full time. The challenge would be far greater if Manatee’s number of hybrid students became even smaller.
Each of the five school board members had different ideas about how to proceed.
What happens next.... Many individual schools within Manatee County sent home a survey this past Friday (10/9/20), that asked families for their preferred learning option in the second quarter of the school year. Parents have until this Wednesday, October 14 to reply, to that survey.
The superintendent also said that the hybrid option is on a School District survey, that would soon go out to parents.