COVID pushed these Manatee students online. State tests are pulling them back to school

Thousands of Manatee County students continue to learn online in hopes of avoiding the COVID-19 cases that creep into local schools. Now, with in-person testing scheduled to begin next week, some families are pushing to keep their children off campus.

The federal- and state-mandated exams — known officially as Florida Standards Assessments — are scheduled to begin on Monday and continue through late May, with different dates depending on the subject and students’ grade level.

With no option to take the exams remotely, the in-person testing invoked questions and great concern from local parents. Dawna DeStefano said three of her children remain online to protect their medically vulnerable family.

The mother said she has asthma and a heart condition, while her mother had a double-lung transplant. And all of DeStefano’s children live with asthma, making them especially sensitive to COVID-19, a respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

“We’re doing this to try and protect ourselves and our family,” she said. “So having to go there and potentially expose them is not OK.”

While the state assessments track progress among most K-12 students, the results weigh heavily on the decision to promote third-graders or to graduate high school seniors, making the decision especially hard for certain students and families.

About 85 percent of students already attend in-person classes full-time, while approximately 5,000 remain online, according to Superintendent Cynthia Saunders.

The online students, she said, would continue to have options during the state assessments.

“Some of them may not feel comfortable coming in,” Saunders continued. “We are going to do many different things to ease their mind. But if they don’t want to come in, we’re not going to force them.”

Taking advantage of the state’s extended testing window, the district plans to schedule more assessment times than it would in a typical school year, allowing for smaller groups of students in each session.

Manatee also planned to separate online students from in-person learners during the assessments. And much like any school day, cleaning and mask-wearing will be enforced.

Similar reassurances led Yustina Probst to allow two of her children to switch from online to in-person learning last week. While she still had concerns about COVID-19, she was more comfortable now that vaccines were rolling out and schools were continuing their mask mandate.

It was no easy decision, she said, noting the frustration she faced after learning about the in-person tests.

Her children knew they stayed home to remain safe during the pandemic, but they also knew testing would bring them back to school. The mixed messages were a source of stress for the whole family.

“My basic job as a parent was to protect my children. I was being told he has to go to school — period. That just killed me,” Probst said, explaining how she felt earlier this year.

Unconvinced by the safety measures, some families would surely keep their children home, Saunders acknowledged, going on to list the options for students who miss Florida’s mandated assessments.

Third-graders who miss or fail the assessment can still advance to fourth grade if their portfolio of work meets the criteria for promotion. The district reviews third-graders’ portfolios and benchmark test results every year.

There will also be makeup test dates for high school students in the summer and fall, along with chances to take the ACT or SAT, which can also be used to meet graduation requirements.

“There are some immediate consequences but they can be overcome,” Saunders said of students who miss the assessments.

However, she said, the tests were about more than grade-level promotions and high school graduations. They were needed to track student progress and to form a plan for their education, especially during the unusual pandemic school year.

“In my opinion, getting the data back so we have a true sense of where each individual child is, it’s going to be vital,” the superintendent continued.

Brett Tubbs, a press secretary for the Florida Department of Education, echoed the superintendent’s message in a statement earlier this year, calling the assessments “a legal and moral must-have.”

“Testing that is required by state and federal law is now more critical than ever so that educators and parents can measure students’ growth and determine what additional services and supports are needed to ensure equity in opportunity for each student to succeed,” he said in an email.

For the DeStefano family, no assessment was more important than a possible COVID-19 exposure. In the current semester, district schools and offices recorded more than 430 COVID-19 cases and at least 5,835 exposures to the infected employees and students, according to district reports.

And though the cases in local schools remain far below the numbers in their surrounding community, even one exposure could be detrimental to the DeStefano family. No state assessment was more important than the health of a loved one, they said.

After a series of calls with local schools and district leaders, the DeStefano family decided their children would remain at home during the state assessments, especially after learning their third-grader would be promoted based on other criteria.

“It took scraping and fighting and phone calls,” Kyle DeStefano said. “Don’t give up and don’t be afraid to fight the system. Nobody is going to fight for your children more than you.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.