AUGUSTA – There’s a good chance schools across the state will continue remote learning through the end of the school year after the commissioner of the Department of Education urged teachers to consider extending remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a news release on the Department of Education’s website, Commissioner Pender Makin is recommending teachers plan to continue distance learning for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year.
The decision was made based on U.S. Centers for Disease Control guidance, which Makin said recommends “an 8 to 20 week timeframe for avoiding large group/in-person instruction once there is evidence of community transmission of COVID-19.”
Makin said in a statement that making the recommendation was difficult, given the “profound challenge of reinventing public education and the many culminating events and rites of passage that educators and students anticipate all year long.”
That being said, Makin wrote that it is best that teachers prepare now for a longer period of remote learning, as well as any sort of “redesigned celebrations and alternative ways to provide both continuity and closure.”
The recommendation also would apply to things like SAT testing and grading systems.
To read the entire DOE statement, click HERE.
