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Comal ISD says no remote learning for the 2021-2022 school year

They say they made the decision early to give parents enough time to look into other options if need be.

SAN ANTONIO — The Comal Independent School District says there will be no remote learning for the upcoming 2021-2022 school year. It’s the first district in south Texas to make the call even before the end of this school year. 

Superintendent Andrew Kim sent a letter home to parents on Thursday alerting them of the change. They say they made the decision this early to give parents plenty of time to make other plans for their children to learn if they feel they need to. 

"He's not getting it, he's not learning what he needs to learn. He doesn't have that one on one interaction with this teacher and he's slacking and getting lazy," said Lisa Bonanni whose son Kaden is a Sophomore at New Braunfels High School. She says remote learning is causing his grades to suffer. She told us, "Kaden is normally an A and B student, and his grades have been slipping because the teacher can't make time to teach regular class and teach virtual learning."

Steve Sanford, the Executive Director of Communications for the Comal ISD said, "One of the reasons we made this decision is that that's just not a sustainable model for the long term. And we want to make sure if we're going to do remote learning, we're going to do it right."

The district said it is working on a plan to potentially hire and staff fully remote teachers for the 2022-2023 school year. Sanford added, "What we're going to do is take this next year to look at how can we structure a virtual learning or a remote learning environment where we have teachers that are one hundred percent dedicated just to that remote learning student."

Most of the comments on our KENS5 Facebook page were positive. Melissa Mattaliano said, "I'm happy about this as a Comal ISD parent it's time to start getting back to somewhat normal." Bonnani also said, "This will be new to him. He's kind of nervous about it, but I think it's a good thing that he goes back."

The district also says they will continue to monitor the pandemic and will be prepared to change course if the situation is necessary.

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