SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Seminole County Superintendent Dr. Walt Griffin said there are benefits of face-to-face learning that students cannot get from being at home.
“A big part of school is what we call the work skills, and that’s learning to work in a group, give-and-take, building relationships,” Griffin said.
It’s something parent Scott Morrell, agrees with.
Morrell said his son will be a senior at Lake Nona High School and said he’ll be doing face-to-face learning this fall.
Morrell said after 10 years of coaching youth football, he’s seen issues some families face.
“We had kids sometimes when we were coaching, where we would have kids that would come and stay with the coaches two or three nights and stuff, because their power wasn’t on at home, or they didn’t have food on the table,” Morrell said.
Morrell said there’s also a social benefit of being at school among peers. He said in a time where so many children are on cellphones and computers, social interaction with peers has become even more important.
Griffin said another issue when you don’t have face-to-face learning is the issue of equity.
“I do believe that there are some equity issues with the remote learning. I think that, you know, nothing replaces our great teachers face-to-face,” Griffin said.
News 6 asked Griffin if remote learning could exacerbate learning loss or a learning gap among minority students.
“Absolutely it can, and it has; I think that our achievement gap and our needs grew greater during remote,” Griffin said.
Seminole County parents have four learning options to choose from for the upcoming semester.
Thus far, 7,000 students are enrolled for the in-person option come fall and 19,000 have selected one of the three stay-at-home options, according to a Seminole County Public Schools spokesman. The deadline to select an option is Friday at noon.
To read more about the district’s reopening plans, click here.