Mrs. Kelli DeMonte, principal at Jefferson Lincoln, reads a book via live stream for students in the Centralia School District.
Students may not be going to the classroom, but that doesn’t mean the learning has stopped. School districts throughout Lewis County have been focusing on continuous education and making sure students have learning materials to work on at home.
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) set an expectation that school districts would have a plan for continued learning in place by Monday, March 30. However, many districts in Lewis County had already provided students with learning materials to work on at home.
Mossyrock School District Superintendent Lisa Grant said that they are supplying work packets that are being delivered to students at the bus stops when meals are delivered.
“Teachers are connecting with each family at least once a week,” said Grant, who was recently hired to be the next superintendent for the Centralia School District, starting this summer. “Each van or bus has a box for completed work so then the teachers can give feedback and we’re going to continue to refine that as we move forward.”
Grant said she has been meeting with the principals in the district to try to come up with a plan to support not only students but the parents that have now found themselves homeschooling their children.
“I would say to families, reach out to your teachers. We will help you, try to stick to some sort of schedule and give yourself grace. It’s a huge shift for us and for families and it’s a very stressful time anyways,” she said.
Grant said teachers are having conference calls over Zoom, a website that allows for a video call with numerous people, and learning as they go. Grant said that she is sending out weekly emails with updates in an effort to create some normalcy in an abnormal situation.
“We understand that this is a stressful time for people and we are trying to do everything we can to support families and kids and keep the learning moving forward. Across our county, people are trying to support each other so that’s one positive in all of this. If there are needs out there of families we would ask that they reach out to us so we can try to meet that need,” said Grant.
Napavine School District sent out a survey when the school closure was announced to gather information about student’s internet access and computer availability to help them to best understand how to provide learning materials during the state-ordered school closure. Napavine Superintendent Geoff Parks said that they found that only about five to six percent of students do not have internet access at home.
“The whole first week of the shutdown we had teachers working on five-week packets. We made sure to provide learning materials that would work best for every kid. We also had our special (education) teachers and our intervention specialists work with students that struggle or are at-risk and kind of specialize the packet to make sure the packets are student-specific and work on the skills that the student needs as best as we could,” he said.
Parks said that all packets of learning material could be made so that it could all be done offline if that was the need and that there are two options within the packets. Those who had internet access would email their teachers the work when it was completed and have that two-way communication between student and teacher and for those without internet they would communicate over the phone.
The district distributed most of the learning materials through a grab and go system at the school.
“We had people come to the school at different times based on the last name of the student. We were outside and had people pull up, tell us the student’s last name and we gave them their packet. We had 85 percent of students get their packet at that time and we delivered the rest,” said Parks.
Parks said that teachers make calls to their students at least once a week and that he has been really proud of the teachers and the creative ideas they have to continue student’s education.
“Our elementary dean is doing some social and emotional learning for kids so she goes on Facebook live and reads these social and emotional learning books and has discussions with students that are able to go live. The students that she knows can’t get online she reaches out to them personally,” said Parks.
Parks suggested that for parents who have now found themselves homeschooling their child that keeping a consistent schedule for learning as well as playtime helps.
“I am so proud of our staff at Napavine for stepping up and doing whatever it takes for our families and our community— it’s been inspiring,” said Parks.
The Winlock School District is also providing packets of learning material for their students that are being delivered with their meals.
“We are having remote conferences next week and we are looking for bringing in some Chromebooks for families who have internet access. We’re looking into having hot spots of internet available for students. We are trying to figure that out,” said Winlock Superintendent Garry Cameron.
Winlock School District is working to have Chromebooks available for students in first through twelfth grade to aid in their education.
“We want to support our families as best we can and they want continuous learning,” said Cameron. “I’m really happy that our staff is working hard to stay in contact with students and families. We’ve been able to deliver meals to about 400 students a day so with a district of our size that’s probably about 80 percent of our kids. I’m really proud of our staff and what they are trying to do during these times,” he said.
The Onalaska School District also sticks to physical packets of work in order to provide the same learning to all students even those without an internet connection.
“We are concerned about internet connectivity at some student’s homes that may prohibit them being able to do work on the computer so we are trying to keep everything even by giving out paper packets and the kids send their work through the meal program and it goes back and forth that way,” said Onalaska’s Technology Director Brad Klein.
