Orange County students head back to class for face-to-face learning on Friday
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - Friday marked the first day back in class for Central Florida’s largest school district, but only 30-percent of Orange County students went back to the classroom.
At Lakeview Middle School, the morning was mostly calm and quiet as students arrived with their parents and nearly empty school buses circled the drop off. No hustle and bustle or hugs and high-fives. It was not your typical first day of school.
Before students could even get off the bus or out of the car, a school employee took a temperature check. For anyone showing up without a mask, staff carry a bag of them to distribute. Kids were seen keeping their social distance as they prepared to go inside their newly outfitted classrooms with Plexiglas desk shields.
FOX 35 was with one family throughout their morning as they got ready for two of their five kids to go back to school.
“I think it’s gonna be weird because you’re gonna have to wear a mask and so many other reasons,” fourth-grader Autumn Wagstaff said.
Her mother, Carmen Wagstaff, said her high school son will have to continue his education online.
“We would have liked to go back to face-to-face in high school, but they’re telling us you have to wait nine weeks,” she said. “And the elementary schools – same thing, some people are calling wanting to switch back to face-to-face but they said absolutely not, they don’t have room and at nine weeks we’ll see what happens.”
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Wagstaff works part-time as a substitute teacher, but said trying to help her kids with online school is a full-time job full of frustrations.
“I was like yelling at the computer,” she said. “They’re confused. They’re having a hard time. They don’t use these things. And so it’s frustrating.”
To help get her two elementary school girls ready for classroom changes, she got them fanny packs to hold extra masks and sanitizer, as well as lanyards to hold onto their mask throughout the day. Her daughters said they will miss being able to use the playground and worry about keeping track of their water bottles since water fountains will be off-limits.