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Focus moves to fall as Whitmer targets school year and how in-person classes can resume

Published  May 15, 2020 11:00pm EDT
Education
FOX 2 Detroit

FOX 2 - How to get school in session by fall is the question Governor Whitmer is tackling. 

There are plenty of unanswered question but the one thing we know is it will look vastly different.

Return to Learning Advisory Council started by Whitmer as focus moves to fall

There are plenty of unanswered question but the one thing we know is it will look vastly different.

"I recognize that making a plan to start the school year is hard during times of normalcy," Whitmer said earlier on Friday. "During COVID-19 it is so much harder."

With the creation of a new council, Whitmer is working to get kids safely back to school by fall.

"Michigan has approximately 1.5 million K-12 public education students, about 3,500 schools and only about 100 days until we have to have our plan ready to be executed," she said.

The 20-person "Return to Learning Advisory Council" - will be made up of students, parents, educators, administrators and public health officials.

If you're qualified, you can apply for online for consideration.  The question remains of what will it look like on the other side of the summer? 

Randy Speck served as a local superintendent, and now works for an education think tank advising schools across the country. 

"I think this is an opportunity for schools to reimagine what has been working well and what can work better in the future," he said.

Speck is an executive-in-residence at the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching. It just released a 40-page hypothetical handbook giving four possible scenarios for the school day. 

"You're in person, you're completely virtual, you're blended or there is that stop and start scenario where we are in school for a couple of months, then all the sudden on a Thursday we realize that next Monday we need to be home for 2 to 3 weeks," he said.

The state will eventually provide a framework - and districts will see what fits for their students.

"I think we all want to happen in the fall and what we know is that planning for the fall is going to be a really complex series of conversations," he said.

Parents, if you want to check look at that handbook that the education think tank released,read below: