SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Students in the San Diego Unified School District are transitioning to remote learning.
Monday afternoon, the district distributed roughly 40,000 Chromebooks to families who don't have computers at home.
The "soft launch" is for teachers and students to learn the new system before they return to graded instruction April 27 (traditional) and May 11 (year-round.)
Kisha Borden, President of the San Diego Education Association, said the transition will be a learning curve for everyone.
"For some of them, it's been kind of stressful and a little scary because you're basically changing the way you do your job, completely changing the way you do your job," said Borden.
San Diego Unified is home to more than 100,000 students. It's the largest district in the state to announce a plan to return to formal grading and instruction.
"I think we have to be flexible and mindful of everyone's situation, we want to continue distance learning, we want to be able to give feedback on that learning," said Borden.
According to the agreement reached with the union and the district, teachers can set their own schedules and will not be required to teach more than four hours a day. Students will have no more than two hours of screen time. Students will also not earn a grade lower than what they had when school let out for good on March 13.
"I don't know how much you can prepare for a global pandemic, none of us have been in this situation before, a lot of our teachers were just teaching and trying to set some sort of normality," said Borden.
According to the district, families who need internet access within the Cox service area should sign up for the Connect2Compete program. The program offers free installation and internet services for the next 60 days.
