The Park Hill School District is preparing for about 400 of the district’s students to move from online learning to in-person learning next month.
When the school year began about 26.5 percent of students across the district chose online learning. That number has dropped to about 22.7 percent or about a four percent increase to the move of in-person learning. Consequently district officials say there will be some changes as a result of those numbers.
Dr. Mike Kimbrel, assistant superintendent of academic services, told board members at a meeting held last Thursday, Dec. 10, via Zoom, that giving parents the option of switching at semester has created quite the puzzle to solve.
“Because of allowing that choice we’ve created a whole bunch of moving parts that are going to affect the entire system,” Kimbrel said.
Most of the movement is occurring at the elementary level. Kimbrel said district officials anticipated the development which is why the district structured the first semester with that shift in mind. Kimbrel said online students were connected to their home school.
“We wanted those students to come back to an environment that they had already been attached to throughout the fall semester,” Kimbrel said.
Kimbrel said across the district the number of elementary school students returning to in-person learning is roughly the amount of an entire school.
“The unfortunate thing is those students don’t distribute themselves exactly the way we would love it,” Kimbrel said. “Those 400-plus students are not going to their own building.”
Kimbrel said district schedule makers have been working day and night the last couple of weeks trying to put together the puzzle.
Teachers will find out what their particular assignment is starting this Friday, Dec. 18, but students and parents may not be notified of what class they are in until Jan. 11, 2021, with school starting the following Tuesday of the next week, Jan. 19.
“That is going to set up a situation that is going to create some need for us to modify how we are making sure we have all classes covered and teachers for those students,” Kimbrel said.
Some students who continue online learning may end up with a different teacher starting next month. Kimbrel said the district has enough staff but it will require some changes.
“We have all the staff we need, we just need to make sure we are appropriately staffing and that’s going to take moving some pieces to different positions,” Kimbrel said. “We’re doing our very best to make as few moves as possible. We’re doing a good job of that but it’s impossible to do without making some moves.”
Dr. Jasmine Briedwell, director of elementary education, told board members some teachers will move from online learning back to in-person learning to keep class sizes in line.
Briedwell said if the district made little to no changes it would require an additional 11 teachers to make it happen.
“Technically speaking we have the correct number of staff but we may not have them in the right places,” Briedwell said. “Starting second semester will be like starting a new year.”
Kimbrel said breaking the school year up into semesters is not really a disruption for middle school and high school kids but it is for elementary level students who are used to an entire year format. Instead of end-of-the-year activities the district will have end-of-semester activities and things like yearbooks will be modified.
“We really have to think of first semester as one school year and second semester as an entirely different school year in many ways,” Kimbrel said.
Kimbrel said there are good reasons why students and parents won’t find out where they are assigned for several weeks after teachers. He said the district also wants to make sure there is enough intervention type staff for things like special education.
This news all came a few days before Park Hill students returned back to hybrid in-person learning this past Monday. Some teachers sent statements to board members asking the online learning be extended past the Christmas holiday.
“Many of our Park Hill students may become inadvertent spreaders the days we are back in-person,” said sixth grade teacher Laura Clay-Sturgis in a statement
Clay-Sturgis also said it didn’t make sense to go back to face-to-face learning for seven days before going back on break.
Special education teacher Mamie Chambers told board members getting her kids to understand what’s going on has been quite the challenge.
“It’s impossible to get them to keep their masks on all day,” Chambers said in the statement. “It’s extremely difficult to ensure safety measures throughout the day in the classroom no matter how hard we try.”