Syracuse City School District Makes End-of-Year Plan Syracuse City School District Marks End Date for Online Schooling

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS) – The early stages of June is when students typically begin their “school’s out for summer” transition. This year was a little bit different though — a school year that was cut short in the classroom and was forced to transition to a virtual learning experience online, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In the midst of chaos, the Syracuse City School District has a plan on when to end the 2019-2020 school year.

Under guidance from state representatives, Wednesday, June 17 will be the last day for students, while Thursday, June 18 marks the last day for teachers and staff. This plan was set in place to benefit all parties as best as they could, considering the circumstances. This also comes after confusion across the state regarding when school would officially end.

“As far as the school year ending, teachers have the contractual obligation to work 184 days in the Syracuse City School District, while the state requires 180 days of instruction,” said William Scott, the Syracuse Teachers Association President. “A lot of the decisions the district has to make and the guidance they put out to their staff is based on the guidance from the state.”

That guidance led the district to making a decision that completes the necessary days of instruction, while also taking the current circumstances into consideration. If things were normal, schools, specifically elementary schools, would not be concluded until the later weeks of June.

The district is also accommodating the students who struggled to learn virtually by extending time to complete their work and catch up on assignments and class activities.

“Because of the circumstances for our students, we are giving them incompletes and they have quite some time to turn in that work. They have all summer to work on that, to participate in virtual summer school to make up that work, and then we will re-assess to see if they need more support,” said Scott. “We don’t want to be in a situation where we are penalizing somebody because they don’t have access.”

To accommodate for the students who don’t have access to technology, the district has dispersed school computers to homes and are in the process of ordering new computers to send to students across the district. The district is also making several hotspots available for Wi-Fi in areas around each of the schools, allowing students to login and do their work in proximity to the school.

With the possibility looming that this pandemic could leak into next fall, Scott says that the district is more prepared now to do what they can to make an impactful virtual learning experience, although it will be challenging.

“There is a lot of talk about hybrid systems; distanced learning for some, while some kids would be in school. But the final decision should come from the state because we need to be in sequence with other school districts,” said Scott. “With that said, it will be difficult to follow CDC guidelines. Things like classroom size and wearing masks all day. They’re real barriers to overcome.”

For the teachers and students, the end of the school year will possibly be the end to a challenging chapter in their education journey, which Scott says has been more demanding than ever.

“The virtual learning is no substitute for in-person learning. It’s nothing like the education style we all know,” said Scott. “People have put in extra hours and longer days because they have to adapt their lessons to something that translates well to a virtual environment.”