Full student bodies to attend in-person four days a week

Hampton-Dumont and CAL Community School District students this week went back to attending class in-person, full time.

The districts last week made the announcement that beginning Monday, Sept. 21 until at least Oct. 2, school will operate under the Phase 3 model of the districts’ return to learn plan, which calls for full on-site learning. Since school began in August, the districts operated under a hybrid model where a split student body attended class on campus two different days a week.

With Phase 3, students will attend class on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday with Wednesdays reserved for distance learning. On Wednesdays, students who may need extra guidance or those who continue to opt for full-time distance learning can be invited to their respective buildings to meet with instructors as teachers see fit. In order to satisfy transportation needs for students to come to school on Wednesdays, the districts will offer an alternate bus route.

Additionally on Wednesdays, teachers will have set time to develop videos for distance learning practices and continue to plan how to effectively combine online and in-person lessons. Superintendent Todd Lettow said the time set aside for planning will reduce the amount of time teachers spend outside of set hours coordinating lessons, answering questions and producing material to satisfy online learning.

“The reason for this change (to Wednesdays) is, we want education to be of quality and to do that well, there just needs to be planning time to get that done,” he said. “Teachers are taking opportunities at night to answer emails and questions how to do certain things and I just think it’s overwhelming to provide that quality instruction for distance and on-site learning like we have been.”

The decision to go to on-site learning, Lettow said, was made by an advisory committee composed of district representatives and community members, which meets every week to analyze the COVID situation in the community. Lettow said the group believed positive case rates in Franklin, Wright and Butler Counties had reduced to a low enough number to safely bring students back. He added that the group meets every week and a decision will be made on or before Oct. 2 whether or not to move back into the hybrid model or down to Phases 2 or 1, which maintain on-site learning with varying levels of safety precautions.

“Some were on the fence and thought the numbers were maybe low because we are in the hybrid model and there was a lot of discussion back and forth,” he said, “but realizing since the numbers are low, we decided to give it a try and see if we can have some normalcy for the kids.”

As full student bodies return to school buildings, Lettow said that the focus will continue to be on social distancing and sanitizing.

“The protocols are still in place when we are passing during classes and all flowing in one direction,” he said. “Teachers will still be disinfecting between classes, masks are required…all those protocols are still in place but the nature of having twice as many people means everyone will be a little closer.”

Lettow said that the hope of bringing students back is to create a cohesive learning experience between teachers and students. He said teachers throughout the districts have noticed performance and participation issues and anticipates the new schedule to help students better connect with teachers while allowing teachers the opportunity to continue to strike a balance between on-site and online learning.

“The thing we have to realize is that we’ve had almost four weeks of school and if kids are going every other day, they’ve only been here six days,” he said. “Already when we’re seeing these grades coming in, what we’ve realized is that the kids don’t have as much time to catch grades up, so we want to be proactive in making contact.”