M-DCPS has officially closed all schools, giving students a break longer than expected.
Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho just announced this afternoon that all schools in Miami-Dade County will be closed for the week of March 16, which will be extended into Spring Break as well.
Just yesterday, Superintendent Carvalho (along with Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie) announced that schools were going to remain opened. But today, the decision shifted: an aftercare worker at Ruth K. Broad Bay Harbor K-8 Center, a Miami-Dade Elementary, tested positive for COVID-19.
Amid parent concern, the District opted for what many foresaw. Now, teachers and students are moving onto online learning for next week, for which the District is providing tablets and computers for all students that need digital devices.
Beginning Monday too, families in need of Internet connectivity can receive free service by Comcast for 60 days. Information about this service is provided on the distance learning website of the District: distancelearning.dadeschools.net. The District is also launching a mental health hotline to help students, and a community feeding plan, where every school will be open from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. so students can have access to free meals for breakfast and lunch.
But while the closure of schools was just announced, many students are concerned in regards to the longetivity of distance learning.
“Although it will be a big break for us as students, I hope that the learning doesn’t merge into our summer vacation,” said Corrie Johnson, a senior student at Miami Lakes Educational Center (MLEC).
Despite the shift to virtual school learning, the school closings will be especially hard on teachers who are concerned with the impacts on teaching and learning conditions for their students.
“I am fairly concerned with this method, ” said Ms. Daniels, a Social Studies instructor at MLEC. “Virtual school is a whole new infrastructure that we don’t know much about, that we haven’t tried often.”
More so, students are worried that taking extra time off from school will lead to the postponement or cancellation of special events and field trips. Just yesterday, MLEC students who were going to watch “Hamilton” at Adrienne Arsht Center, learned the news that their fieldtrip (which was scheduled for today and was anticipated for weeks), was canceled by the district.
The fear of other such events—specifically end-of-the-year trips—being cancelled is one that the senior class particularly has.
“As seniors, we look forward to all those activities because—in the end—we worked all year for them and it would suck if they were to get nothing,” said Rashard Dyre, a Senior student in the Information Technology strand.
According to the Center for Disease Control, the United States is now sporting a total of 1,215 confirmed cases with a total of 36 reported deaths—and the statistics remain changing. With its presence seeping into Florida, where Governor DeSantis announced this morning that there are now 51 cases in the state, Miami residents are now more worried than ever: the once virus-free city was declared in a state of emergency by Miami Mayor Francis Suarez yesterday, evoking the sudden shift in the school schedules.
For now, Miami-Dade County schools are hoping that conditions regarding the virus will be mollified during the period of shut down so that classes can be resumed after Spring break.
