Families had the option to transfer into or out of FCPS’ Blended Virtual Program at the end of the district’s first semester, which wrapped up Jan. 13. The virtual program is still at capacity, said its middle school principal, Frank Vetter, but only about 130 students are waiting to get in. In August, that figure stood at around 400.
The added security of vaccines for children under 12 — which were rolled out in November — led some parents to send their children back for in-person learning, Vetter said. Other children missed their friends too much. And some families decided the virtual format just wasn’t the right academic fit for their students.
The length of the waitlist “waxed and waned” over the first semester, Vetter said, with a spike in families wanting to join when the omicron variant began to spread. But many others opted to try out a virtual education — or decided to abandon it — for reasons unrelated to the virus, he said.
“We created this to be a long-term option,” Vetter said. “It wasn’t just to respond to what’s going on with the pandemic.”
The virtual program can serve as an alternative to students who struggle in a traditional classroom setting for any number of reasons, Vetter said. One semester in, he reflected on the successes and challenges of building the program — which essentially functions like its own school, with its own teachers, administrators and counselors — from the ground up.
“In terms of our implementation, I’m pretty pleased with it,” he said. “And I believe we know what makes for effective online learning.”
There have been challenges, Vetter said, but most of them were behind the scenes. It can be hard, for instance, to manage staffing and student records when kids are transferring in and out of the program so frequently.
Casey Bazzano, of Adamstown, decided to keep her two daughters, Gianna and Briella, in the BVP for the remainder of the year. She works in health care, she said, and has been very cautious throughout the pandemic.
Originally, Bazzano had planned to send her girls — a fourth-grader and a first-grader — back to Carroll Manor Elementary School once they were fully vaccinated. But the omicron variant changed that.
“I know a lot of the virtual parents, that was our plan — ‘We’re going to get them vaccinated, and then they can go back,’” Bazzano said.
But when case rates started to explode, Bazzano decided she wasn’t comfortable sending her kids back. Mostly, she said, that was because they’d have to eat lunch in a room with hundreds of other unmasked students.
That’s a concern among some other parents, too, Bazzano said. One friend of hers chose to leave the BVP before omicron hit, and wasn’t able to get them back in. Now, she picks her kids up at lunch every day and the family eats in the parking lot, Bazzano said.
Bazzano said she felt lucky that her daughters were thriving in the BVP — both have straight As, and neither seem distressed over missing time with their classmates. The girls take horseback riding lessons and participate in other outdoor activities that allow them to interact with other kids.
Plus, Bazzano and her husband are both working remotely, so they’re able to help the girls with their assignments or troubleshoot technology issues. She understands not all families have that luxury.
“If I was going into work and getting exposed and exposing my kids, they might as well have gone to school,” she said. “Thank God they’re doing good with it, or I might have a different conversation. If my kids were emotionally struggling, or I saw depression or anything, it might be different.”
The elementary virtual program had a waitlist of 51 students as of Jan. 18, compared with 162 students in August. The middle school had 18 compared to 113 in August, and the high school had 64 compared to 124 in August.
©2022 The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
