UPDATE: The superintendent has recommended that schools will start the year 100% online. See more information here.
Momentum is growing for the largest school system in the D.C. area to change its back-to-school plans.
Fairfax Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand will present a recommendation to the school board Tuesday afternoon that might require all students to start the school year with distance learning.
While the decision is ultimately Brabrand's, some school board members say they have wanted this all along.
"The board itself has been conflicted since the beginning. Some of us have felt, including myself, that the virtual option is preferred as a start," school board member Abrar Omeish said.
Families and teachers were told to choose between either an all-virtual learning plan or a plan that combined in-person learning with distance learning.
Anyone who did not choose by the July 15 deadline was automatically defaulted to the in-school option.
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Sixty percent of student respondents picked the in-person option. However, it was a default choice for more than a quarter of them.
Forty-eight percent of teachers choose the in-person option.
Omeish said the gap creates a problem.
"The number of adults in the building who can support our young folks as they come back won't be the same and so, as we try to balance out the logistics, that's part of how now the superintendent is looking at the feasibility of that," Omeish said.
On Tuesday, one of the associations representing teachers and staff plans to lead a caravan from Luther Jackson Middle School to the FCPS administration building to rally in support of starting the year all-virtual.
