Out of 99 remote learning students in USD 257, about 27 should be back in school, administrators said Monday.
About a third of remote learning students haven’t been performing well, they said. There’s no guarantee they would succeed in an in-person environment, Superintendent Stacey Fager said, but having them in a classroom would make it easier for teachers to intervene and help those who are struggling.
Fager, administrators and teachers want to change the district’s remote learning policy to force students to return if they don’t meet certain standards. Exceptions would be made for medical issues.
It makes sense to set guidelines under which students can attend school from an alternate location, such as home, board members said. But the district didn’t include that when it approved its remote learning plan this summer.
“If we had known in August what we know now, I would have had a different recommendation on remote learning,” Fager said. “We wanted to meet students’ needs and be as flexible as possible.”
Iola Middle School Principal Brad Crusinbery said it’s difficult for teachers to keep some remote students engaged.
“Once or twice a week, I have a teacher come me. ‘What else can we do for this student? How do we get this student to do this assignment?’ They’re stressed,” he said.
Fager recently attended a conference for superintendents and discussed what other districts are doing. He learned some districts had included those type of standards into their plans.
The board asked Fager, administrators and teachers to come up with a set of measurable standards that can be used to determine if a student would be better served in a classroom setting.
EACH OF the principals in the district spoke about their coronavirus safety procedures, and how teachers and students are coping.
For the most part, students and teachers have adapted to some of the biggest changes, the principals said.
One change, designating one-way stairwells, actually is an improvement over the previous system, Iola High School principal Scott Carson said.
Students usually wear their masks with few problems, they said. The restrictions may be inconvenient and some students grumble occasionally, Carson said, but they understand the changes are necessary to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Anyone who is infected or has close contact with someone who is infected will be quarantined, which has affected some sports teams and activities.
“I think everyone understands. Let’s not take for granted that we are in school. A lot of schools are not open,” Carson said.
It’s been a big adjustment for teachers, too. In addition to teaching both in-person and remote students, teachers had to incorporate additional cleaning procedures into their routines.
