Newport-Mesa Unified will keep virtual Cloud Campus next school year, but what about Cohort C?

With coronavirus cases subsiding and students poised to return to campuses for full-day instruction later this month, Newport-Mesa Unified officials are left to decide the future of remote-learning models many families had come to rely on during the pandemic.

Consequently, a cohort of students who for months have been livestreaming in-person classes at their home schools from the safety of their living rooms may have to reconsider their options come fall.

School board members in a special meeting last week decided they would continue a 100% virtual Cloud Campus for TK-12 students into the 2021-22 school year. The move, they reasoned, provides an online option for families hesitant to join the rush back to brick-and-mortar classrooms.

“This is a great, wonderful option we want to be able to continue for [students] moving into the next school year,” Supt. Russell Lee-Sung said at the April 8 meeting, indicating intent-to-participate forms would soon go out to parents to help plan enrollment and staffing in the year ahead.

Students at Corona Del Mar High School on the first day hybrid learning in November. With high schoolers set to return to full-day instruction the week of April 26, the fate of online school options is cloudy.

(File Photo)

Officials estimate 1,700 pupils currently attend the Cloud Campus, including some 550 secondary students. With its own teachers, curriculum and mascot (the phoenix), the online campus functions as an independent school.

“I love my teachers and how everything is set up on my Chromebook for me to use,” Cloud Campus seventh-grader Owen FitzSimon told board members. “I’m so excited to keep going to school here next year.”

Principal Mike Sciacca highlighted efforts to create an espirit de corps that keeps kids like Owen connected to one another in a brief presentation, during which he described a growing list of clubs, electives, AP classes and activities.

“These small things make a big difference, connecting students to an identity and making them feel like they’re a part of something beyond a Zoom screen,” Sciacca said.

But many families who sought online options during the pandemic — including Corona del Mar High School mom Cindi Maher, whose two daughters suffer from immune system issues — maintain the Cloud Campus is not a viable choice.

“They were trying to throw kids into this Cloud Campus last year, but it does not meet the needs of high-performing students,” she said Thursday. “It’s just not going to meet a lot of kids’ needs, no matter what they do.”

Maher’s junior daughter is a student athlete and attends AP classes and special programs that are not offered at the Cloud Campus but are crucial to her being a competitive college applicant. That’s why the family turned down the virtual offering for the current school year.

Still, the prospect of in-person learning posed health risks that made Maher hesitant to return her daughters to Corona del Mar, even under a modified schedule with students separated into A and B cohorts that came on campus in shifts.

When the district, anticipating a post-Thanksgiving coronavirus surge, created a “Cohort C” that would allow kids in quarantine or self-isolation to keep up with classes from home without having to leave their own schools and programming, it seemed like the best option.

“My freshman and my junior are streaming full time into their classes five days a week,” Maher said. “There has been very little difficulty, and my girls are being connected to their teachers and connected to the programs.”

Maher isn’t the only one who prefers having a third option. Kirk Bauermeister, executive director of secondary education, estimated at the district’s special meeting some 1,500 middle and high schoolers have participated in classes as part of Cohort C.

Trustees grappled with predicting enrollment trends in the year ahead, given uncertainty over a possible coronavirus resurgence in the months ahead and how many teachers and students will get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Board Vice Chair Michelle Barto said she was fine approving the continuation of a TK-12 Cloud Campus but recommended the district survey all students who participated in online classes this school year, not just those in “The Cloud.”

“My concern comes down to Cohort C. I would want for those students to be surveyed too, so that we really know our picture,” Barto said. “We’ve got a pool of 2,700 kids districtwide who aren’t ready to be on campus. How do we handle them?”

Lee-Sung said NMUSD would also survey Cohort C students to see if they’d prefer to enroll in the Cloud Campus over returning to in-person learning.

Maher said Thursday she would wait and continue to hold out hope the district might continue to offer the livestreaming option for families who still need it. She guessed she wouldn’t be alone.

“Families are probably going to wait and see,” Maher said. “They’re not going to commit to the Cloud Campus. I’m not going to commit — I’m going to wait.”

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