In the not so distant past, when an Irving ISD staffer arrived at a student’s home, they were investigating a truancy situation. How things have changed. While attendance and dropout prevention measures are occurring, home visits altered significantly, thanks in large part to COVID-19. With 47 percent of district students working from home, challenges revolve around a number of issues, from dealing with skittish technology to students having difficulty absorbing information from a computer screen or iPad.
So each week, members of the Irving ISD Campus Operations team blanket the city, visiting as many as 20 homes each within a day from a roster of 40 to 60 students. Since starting this initiative, the Home Visit Blitz, Irving ISD has knocked on the doors of well over 800 families, doing everything from fixing technical glitches or replacing devices to giving much-needed encouragement. Lately they have been arriving with something extra: bags of groceries.
Read more in this Rambler article.
