Uncharted waters: School board moves to secure funding, prepare for possible closure extension

The Lincoln School Board met Wednesday, March 18 to ensure the school was on the right course in what trustee Jay Terman called uncharted waters.

The board passed a trio of motions that will ensure the school maintains its funding after Gov. Steve Bullock's ordered schools statewide to close from March 16-27to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

The school board formally declared an unforeseen emergency, authorized the staff to provide off-site instruction and authorized Superintendent Jennifer Packer to determine student proficiency without regard to the aggregate hours of instruction.

"The emergency closure allows more than one day of closure without impacting funding due to the school's aggregate hours," school clerk Carol Williams told the BVD. Under state law, a school can lose funding if it doesn't meet a minimum number of aggregate hours of instruction for each student. "The motions for continuing instruction online is to make sure we're still continuing instruction."

Packer told the board they are tracking aggregate hours, nevertheless.

"We're doing a lot of data taking and collecting to show how much time and the lesson plans and stuff that mean we should meet our aggregate hours," she said.

The school also plans to continue tracking student proficiency, and Packer said they've been given a lot of leeway in how they do that. "It's not talking about the end-of-the-year proficiency. We can maybe even use the class grades, if they're passing. If they're not, if their failing, we need to be giving that extra support."

At the time of the meeting, end-of-the-year testing was still on the table despite the closure, but that could change.

"They might say we don't have to give those. Right now, they've expanded the window of time for testing. But they might forgo the whole standardized testing for this year," Packer said.

The school closure order forced the school's teachers to spend Monday, March 16 developing lesson plans for two weeks of on-line learning, which they had ready for the students by Tuesday.

"I am very pleased. Every single student came and got their lesson plans, came and got their books...which is remarkable to me," Packer said. "I was very impressed with the community, that they did that in one day, and impressed with the teachers who were able to pull that all together in one day."

The school board's approval of on-line instruction last week is central to the school's action plan requested by the governor's office, which Packer will submit at the end of the week.

Packer told the BVD on Monday she will meet with the teachers this week to make sure things are set up for continued on-line learning, and to discuss the attendance and homework procedures, in the event the Bullock extends the closure order beyond March 27. For the time being, however, Packer re-iterated that school has not been called off.

During the school board meeting, sixth-grade teacher Katie Spencer said she let her students know the times they need to check in each day for attendance and that she and some other teachers have been doing video chat check ins each day.

"Some people are doing more than just once a day," she said. "I'm also having may students e-mail in questions, do google forms to submit programs so we can have grades more than just at the end of this two-week period. We're making videos and sending them out to kids, and having them e-mail back homework. It's a lot of creativity going on to keep the kids motivated and working."

"It's great that we're such a small school and were able to get this going and that it seems to be working," School Board President Aaron Birkholz said.

One of the main concerns with online learning had to do with the handful of students who didn't have internet access. Lincoln Telephone Company has since set those families up with service, and Packer said. the school has checked out computers to make sure every family has access to online learning.

"It actually is going very smoothly," Packer told the BVD Monday. "So, we just want the parents to know that it is expected, that they check in with their classes and are doing work."

The School Board said the closure may be a hardship, but it's aimed at helping prevent the spread of a pandemic.

"It's not just about you getting sick, it's about people who are immune compromised in our community, and the elderly our community," said Wendi Dietz, the board's vice president.

""We're doing what we're told do: close down the school, and going beyond to try to educate the students. The teachers are putting a lot of time into that," Packer said.

The school board plans to continue holding their regularly scheduled meetings, but if the restrictions continue, they may have to find a way to host the public meetings remotely or using online streaming services.