Clintonville School Board concerned about virtual students
By Bert Lehman
The Clintonville School District will remain with its current learning model of four days a week of in-person learning so it does not have to cancel its virtual learning option.
That decision was made by the Clintonville School Board at its Jan. 25 meeting by a 6-1 vote.
Board member Mark Zachow voted against staying with the current learning model.
Prior to the meeting, several members of the school board visited Rexford Longfellow Elementary School during a school day to observe and speak with school staff.
At the school board meeting, Superintendent David Dyb said the administration of each building was asked to develop a plan to return to in-person learning five days a week.
The board requested the plans at its Jan. 11 meeting.
“If we go to five-day (in-person) instruction, the virtual program as we have it now, will cease to exist, which means we must look at other options for the 10% (of students) who are all virtual, and what we do when we have upwards of two dozen kids a week that are quarantined in the district,” Dyb said.
He said there were a few slots available for the second semester for middle school and high school students to enroll in virtual classes with Rural Virtual Academy (RVA).
The Clintonville School District is an invested member of RVA.
Students would be competing with students from 38 other schools for those second semester open slots.
Another option for all virtual students is to use Odysseyware.
Dyb said the district has used Odysseyware for a number of years as a form of credit recovery.
“It is not intervention based. It is a canned curriculum,” Dyb said.
He added that there is no live instruction or interaction with that program.
Board member Jim Schultz said he believes the district would be reducing the quality of education if it switched to in-person learning five days a week.
He added that he thought it would be best for the district to finish the year under the current format of in-person learning four days a week.
Board President Lori Poppe said the district is responsible for the students who elected an all-virtual learning program, but that would need to be canceled if the district returned to in-person learning five days a week.
“They (virtual learning students) should be getting the same education that the rest of the kids that are in school are getting,” Poppe said. “That’s our job as leaders of the school district.”
The board will continue to reevaluate its instructional model at each board meeting.