The Springfield district has suspended one magnet program for the fall and will require students who want to participate in other specialty or "choice" programs to attend in-person two days a week.
Students who opt for full-time virtual learning will not be able to participate in those programs, at least for the fall semester.
"As we evaluated those programs, they are built so heavily on that hands-on student experience and how those students and teachers interact with their facility and their surrounding," said Ben Hackenwerth, executive director of innovation and information. "We just felt a fully virtual program would not give them the experience they had been promised."
The district unveiled a plan Thursday to fully reopen schools Aug. 24 for the first time in five months but with reduced capacity. Parents must choose, by Friday, if their children will move to full-time virtual learning or a hybrid with two days in-person and two virtual each week.
Students who have last names starting with A-K will go Mondays and Tuesdays and L-Z will go Thursdays and Fridays.
However, the full-time virtual option is not available for students who want to be part of the following programs:
- Wonders of the Ozarks Learning Facility or WOLF — Serves 46 fifth-graders at the Morris Conservation Education Center next to Bass Pro Shops;
- Academy of Fine and Performing Arts — Serves 50 fifth-graders at the Judith Enyeart Reynolds School of the Performing Arts;
- Academy of Exploration — Serves 40 fifth-graders at the Discovery Center;
- International Baccalaureate programs — Serves hundreds of students at Central High School;
- Springfield Scholars — Serves highly gifted students in grades 6-8 at Central High School.
Hackenwerth said students who attend in-person two days a week will receive "at least a taste of what they originally signed up for."
"Unlike a typical fifth-grade classroom, we don't have virtual WOLF teachers," he said. "We wouldn't ask the two (WOLF) teachers to teach the students who are in front of them and engage in a fully virtual format ... at the same time. That is just not a realistic expectation."
More: Springfield district offers reading, math 'boot camp' for grades 1-8 in August
If a student exits a "choice" program to go fully virtual in the fall — potentially freeing up a spot — he or she may have the option of resuming the program in the spring.
"At this point, I don't think we're going to move forward with filling those positions," he said.
The district has suspended the Health Sciences Academy located at Mercy Hospital for the fall semester. Typically, it serves nearly 50 eighth-graders, who have guided access to different parts of the medical campus.
Hackenwerth said that magnet program may be able to restart in January, depending on the status of the pandemic.
"Obviously, in a hospital setting, there are a lot of restrictions and understandably so," he said. "When we evaluated that program against those protocols, we just felt it would not be the experience those students signed up for."
"We want to evaluate it again leading into the second semester. Our hope is that we can go back to that program during the second semester," he said.
The district plans to use the classroom space it has at Mercy Hospital as the home base for high school upperclassmen who are part of a health and medical strand in the career exploration program, Greater Ozarks Centers for Advanced Professional Studies, or GO CAPS.
More: SPS releases revised masking, learning schedule plan for 2020-21 year
"We'll maintain the social distance guidelines that have been laid out for us so students who are juniors and seniors can get that experience, since they are coming to the end of their schooling," he said. "We'll re-evaluate everything at semester."
Hackenwerth said the program has been housed at Cox North, which is not hosting the students this fall.
Long before the pandemic, the district announced plans to open the Academy for Fine and Performing Arts this fall.
"It will go on as planned. The units are ready to go, the teachers are ready to go, and they are going to adjust like the other teachers in our other magnet schools are going to adjust," he said. "It is still going to be a great experience. We are trying to work through right now what performances will look like."
Claudette Riley is the education reporter for the News-Leader. Email news tips to criley@news-leader.com and consider supporting vital local journalism by subscribing. Learn more by visiting News-Leader.com/subscribe.
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