If Hawaii can keep COVID-19 infection rates low, most public school students will probably return to in-person instruction in January. However, most middle- and high-school students won’t be returning for five full days of instruction. Instead, many schools have adopted a hybrid or blended model to comply with physical distancing regulations in packed classrooms.

At my son’s high school, hybrid means that half of the students will receive in-person instruction two days a week (Monday, Wednesday) from 8:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., and the other half will receive the same on the alternate days (Tuesday, Thursday). Fridays there will be no instruction.

On days that the child is not in school, he or she is expected to work on assignments with no help readily available from teachers.

What does this mean for students and parents? It means that students are getting shortchanged when it comes to instruction hours. It means they are getting shortchanged on content since the teacher will be teaching the same lesson twice. And it means that students will get vast amounts of homework to keep them busy on their “days off.” It also means that parents will be teachers three days a week.

For some children, this model might work. They will complete assignments without needing help from anyone on stay home days. But for many, this hybrid model will be just as detrimental or worse than distance learning. At least with distance learning, students got to see their teachers virtually every weekday until around 1:30 p.m. Come January, we might see a lot of kids at the beach on weekdays.

How can we fix this? An obvious solution — one that many private schools are already doing — is asking teachers to teach all students, with half of the students at school, and the other half following online. This way, students at home can ask questions and participate in class discussion. It won’t be perfect, but it will be better than letting unsupervised students go holoholo. Teachers won’t have to rush content as they won’t be teaching the same lesson twice.

Additionally, the vulnerable immune-compromised families will have the option for their child to do full distance learning, and won’t be forced to choose between hybrid and homeschool, which presently uses the controversial Acellus Accelerator program.

Why isn’t the Hawaii Department of Education providing this option? Why leave such an important solution up to principals to enforce (or not)?

Hawaii DOE just released preliminary first-quarter grades, which showed that over 10% of high school students failed math and English. Absenteeism also increased this year. Several mainland schools that did a more in-depth analysis of grades indicated that students who performed the worst were the ones who were struggling even before the pandemic. These are the kids who didn’t log on or turn in assignments. I expect it will be the same for our students.

We are yet to receive detailed information on school reopening plans for early January. I don’t know which schools plan to use this particular hybrid model, which schools plan to stick with full distance learning and if there are schools that plan to bring back all the students every day. Why leave parents in the dark?

I understand it’s a volatile situation and principals are caught in the middle, but several local private schools have provided detailed plans for various COVID-19 scenarios (infection rates, outbreaks, etc). Why not adapt these plans and communicate with parents?

We want our public schools to be the best they can be. But cutting instruction hours, rushing through content and leaving kids who are already struggling without teacher help three days a week is not prudent. Why not make the hybrid option two days of in-person classes, two days of distance learning and alternate Fridays between in-person and distance learning?

Shiyana Thenabadu is a photographer, community volunteer and former educator.