MEMPHIS, Tenn — The Millington Municipal School District enters the third week of its new hybrid school year as more districts get started.
The school year for Shelby County Schools begins next week while the West Memphis School District and Tunica County School District both returned Monday.
Now three weeks in, Millington Municipal Schools Director Bo Griffin said he's very pleased with how the school year has started.
“I’ve been very pleased with the first two weeks," Griffin said. "Especially by the patience of our stakeholders and our parents for understanding this is a brand new educational adventure for all of us."
Griffin said he is reassured by how the community has responded in the recent weeks and the masks being worn inside and outside of school.
In the first two weeks, the district reports one positive COVID-19 case but it wasn't with a student or teacher. The district said the case was with a contracted worker who had limited interaction with students and staff.
The district started the school year with a hybrid plan. Students spend 2-4 days a week in the classroom and do virtual learning for the rest of the week. Nearly 42% of students are learning solely virtually making it easier for teachers to ensure social distancing in the classrooms.
For Griffin, he said the biggest lesson they've learned as a district is how to be flexible and adjust to new norms as well as changing standards by the health department.
"Just being flexible because with this fluid situation you have to be," he said. "There’s no sense of getting upset that the rules changed because we know they have changed several times in the last six months but that is the number one thing just being patient and being flexible.”
There's still going to be hiccups with all the changes. Griffin said an ongoing challenge is navigating new online learning systems.
“Learning a new platform [is the biggest challenge]," Griffin said. "Our students learning that, our parents helping learning with that and our teachers learning on new platforms. Not every teacher was technologically savvy but they’re getting better at it every day just like the students are.”
To get a better idea of how students are doing this year, two social workers for the district are in the process of surveying parents on their child's needs both physically and mentally in order to better serve them.
