Education experts say schools will operate differently next year

  WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - The days of hundreds of students piling into school buildings first thing in the morning is over—well, at least for now.
 
Joshua Starr, a former superintendent for Montgomery County and current CEO of PDK International, an education consulting firm, says COVID-19 will dramatically change how students attend school in the upcoming school year.

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He says there will be three likely scenarios for what schools will look like moving forward. 
 
“One is a full physical return with a lot of safety, social distancing, stuff like that,” says Starr. “Second, and probably the most likely is a hybrid or blended model where you have physical return of some kind but also have an increase in virtual learning. And then the third is just of course virtual learning. And we just don’t know yet. That’s the problem.”
 
He says COVID-19 is also affecting schools on an administrative level. Budgets, which are usually completed by March, will be severely affected.
 
Starr says schools will have to take on extra expenses.
 
He says staff cuts will likely be one of the main things that will be cut from budgets.
 
“Most of your money is in personnel. You can cut around the edges. If you have an increase in digital presence, can you cut down in copy paper? Maybe. It’s not going to get you that much money,” says Starr.

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