Lee County school district worries students’ progress hurt by quarantines

Your child’s education may be suffering because of COVID-19. Not only are children who test positive with the virus forced to quarantine, but anyone who was in those children’s proximity must also stay home for 14 days.

Lee County Superintendent Dr. Greg Adkins says there is no better model than face-to-face learning, so quarantining a student is going to have an impact.

“So if you have to quarantine in that classroom, making that Lee Home Connect transition is much easier,” Adkins said. “But there are other cases where you have somebody in a full distance model or a full face-to-face model who doesn’t have that distance learning available to them, so I think the longer we get into it we’re looking for ways to bring more of the Lee Home Connect model available, but it’s a struggle.”

Adkins referred to this process as a jigsaw puzzle. He says it is clear that students who are in distance learning right now are not making the progress the county would like to see.

The school district monitors all students to make sure they are on track. For a student to be successful at distanced learning, Adkins says, they have to adapt to being in that home environment and have good parental support, adjustments they especially see younger students struggling with.

“I think, overall, our students that are in the distance learning model are not making the progress that we would like to see compared to our students that are face-to-face,” Adkins said. “Now, that’s not to say all kids, because some of our kids are thriving in the distance model, but you have to be a pretty special individual, particularly if you’re going to do Lee Virtual School, because that’s a very independent model.”

Right now, the district has no plans to change any COVID-19 safety measures. It says it will continue to work with the Department of Health and Lee Health to keep students and staff safe.