Past decisions help MCSD navigate online period

School Board
By: 
Pete Temple
Express Associate Editor

     Pre-planning, some of it inadvertent, enabled the Monticello Community School District to navigate a two-week period in which students throughout the district had to do all of their learning online.

     When the district had a 5.2 percent absentee rate due to COVID-19, and more than 34 staff members out as well, it applied to the state for permission to go online only.

     That two-week period began Nov. 12 and has ended, and with absentee rates dropping to 4 percent of staff and 3 percent for students, the district allowed students to return beginning Monday, Nov. 30.

     While the online learning period had its bumps along the way, Superintendent Brian Jaeger, along with other district administrators, said Monticello was as successful as it could be.

     “We have done as well as we possibly could to make a switch like this,” Jaeger said during a Google Meet school board meeting Nov. 23.

     While in previous years, no school district could have anticipated the circumstances that COVID-19 has wrought in 2020, Monticello had the advantage of having implemented 1-to-1 technology beginning with the fall of 2018.

     “We really laid the groundwork to be able to do this, without knowing this was where it was going,” Jaeger said. “We have the physical technology in our hands and we’re able to do that. That’s the first barrier a lot of schools are seeing right now.”

     Another advantage the district had was starting the school year by designating Wednesdays as online learning days throughout the district.

     “That really allowed us to transition as smoothly as possible,” middle school principal Todd Werner said at the Nov. 23 meeting. “Students, parents and staff already had been utilizing a lot of the tools and formats for the process.”

     At the middle school, teachers posted assignments and activities by 8:30 each morning during the two-week online period.

     “Throughout the day teachers have scheduled Google Meets, at which they can provide instruction, give examples, demonstrate things, go through different activities, and the kids can also ask questions,” Werner said.

     For the high school, principal Joan Young required teachers and students to stick to their regular class schedules, attending Google Meets at the same times their classes would have taken place if they were in the building. If students were not in the Google Meet at the scheduled time, parents were called.

     “The Google Meets were not the full-on 90 minutes,” Young said at the meeting. “Sometimes it was only 30 or 40 minutes, depending on the class. But then the teachers were there to answer any of the students’ questions or provide clarification, so I think it helped the students to be able to learn online.”

     Curriculum director Robyn Ponder said the two-week online period was a good way to test online curriculum.

     “We’re finding out which curriculums work well online, and which ones have some challenges with it,” Ponder said. “I think we were able to do things a lot more easily because we had those (online) Wednesdays where people were already using those materials.”

     Going online-only was not without its problems.

     “The amount of time teachers are putting in, trying to meet the needs of the students, is a huge challenge,” Werner said. “We’ve got teachers up past midnight working on things.”

     It has been a challenge for parents, as well, he added.

     “It’s tough when parents are working, and then they come home and they need to also support the kids’ learning,” Werner said.

     In general, administrators were happy that students were going to return to the buildings Nov. 30.

     “Learning online is not ideal,” Young said. “We’re rather have all of our students back brick-and-mortar.”

     Werner added: “It’s been a team effort. But we’re looking forward to getting students back in the building.”

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