WESLACO, Texas (KVEO) — The Texas Education Agency allowed local districts to bring some students back and Weslaco ISD Superintendent Dr. Priscilla Canales says staff has been ready.
“After the closure, we had trainings that everyone had to go through.”
She says the trainings were on identifying COVID-19 symptoms and making sure staff knew what to do if they felt any.
The trainings were repeated as more staff returned to campus.
The school is reopening to students who had issues connecting to their classes because of internet access.
“That’s about 450 students across 19 campuses,” she said.
Although the district had invested $4.7 million over the last five years and had the technology to provide to most students, hotspots were still an issue.
“Sometimes the hotspots in some areas don’t provide the connectivity that we need for our children,” said Superintendent Canales.
The signal from internet providers does not reach some students, especially those in rural areas, making the hotspots ineffective.
The students coming to the schools will still be seeing most of their teachers virtually.
“We’ll be having proctors in the classrooms tomorrow. It is teacher choice; we have some campuses where teachers have volunteered,” said Canales.
The district’s goal with this soft reopening is to give students who could not access their classes, the ability to do so virtually.
