AURORA | After weeks of tension between teachers and district officials, Aurora Public Schools will increase the amount of in-school time for some students after spring break but will not offer students scheduled online or in-school classes on Fridays, according to a message sent to district families.
The plans call for continuing its Friday “asynchronous learning” program, criticized by top school district officials. Under the program, students do not formally spend time with a teacher in school or online on that day.
Spring break began March 15 for all district schools. After the break, preschool and elementary students will continue to go to school in-person Monday through Thursday for the rest of the school year. Middle school students will also attend in person Monday-Thursday, after previously attending school for two days of the week in a cohort model.
High school students will now attend school in person for half days every day Monday through Thursday, the district announced, with half the student body on campus at a time. Cohort “A” students will attend class in-person in the morning and remotely in the afternoon, and Cohort “B” vice-versa.
The district will evaluate whether it can bring high school students back in-person full-time in time for session 8, beginning on April 27. It will make an announcement in mid-April, the message said.
Earlier in the spring semester, Superintendent Rico Munn said that the district would be looking into bringing students back to the classroom on Fridays as well, instead of having it as an asynchronous day where students did not have any in-person or live online lessons.
Munn cited a lack of student engagement on Fridays as a problem. However, teacher pushback to the idea was intense, with the Aurora Education Association saying that without the time on Fridays to lesson plan for both online and in-person instruction, they would be unable to perform their jobs well.
The debate culminated in a series of sharp open letters, with the union claiming Munn had kept them out of the decision-making process and Munn saying that the union’s claims were “dishonest and inappropriate.” A special meeting was scheduled by the school board to discuss the issue in February, but was later canceled.
In the district’s latest message, Munn said that Fridays will be kept asynchronous after all.
“After engaging with several hundred teachers and staff from across the district and collaboratively designing strategies to improve attendance and engagement, we have reached the decision that Fridays will continue to be designated as mostly asynchronous (students learn on their own time) after Spring Break,” he said in the message.
To combat low Friday participation, the district will be outlining attendance targets for schools and coming up with plans to ensure they are met, the message said. That may include things such as some live learning opportunities on Fridays or student check-ins.