ABILENE, Texas — According to Abilene Independent School District, Superintendent Dr. David Young, the district is working towards a new instruction model that will no longer have teachers juggling both in-person and virtual learners.
The new model which the district hopes to implement on the first day of the Spring semester will apply to all grades pre-k through 12th and Dr. Young believes it will benefit both students and teachers.
'First and foremost our kids are struggling in remote learning and it's not going well. There is academic issues there". said, Young.
According to Young, there are 2,441 students who are learning remote, and at the third-week progress report for the second 6-weeks of school, the failure rate is 62.7 percent, compared to in-person learners which is 32.8%.
"Education like anything else is about a relationship. I think one of the reasons the in-person failure rate is higher than normal is because teachers are pulled in two directions and they don't feel they are doing a great job at either one" said Young.
The district plans to roll out a registration process in the next couple of weeks for parents to decide whether or not their student will be learning in person or remotely come January.