Su Valley Principal, Lisa Shelby, and Mat-Su Schools Federal Programs Director, Katie Ellsworth, presented their model for safely re-opening Susitna Valley High School on Tuesday night. About eighteen people attended the event in person, and many more attended via live stream.
Ms. Ellsworth outlined the myriad of reasons the school may be temporarily shut down during the school year, due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
Principal Shelby explained how the school will grapple with maximizing student learning during unknown conditions.
The duo explained that school buses will be running at 65% capacity, social distancing will be practiced, and masks will be highly encouraged at school but not mandated.
The main message for parents was that students could easily plug in and out of school using the APEX system. Normally, APEX is an online learning platform for students who wish to take a course not offered at Su-Valley. But during the pandemic, APEX and Su-Valley will run identical parallel programming for all of Su-Valley’s core classes.
Principal Shelby explains how the process will work for students:
“So, If you’re in the building, instruction will look the same as it has been. Teachers will be teaching, kids will be in classrooms. If you opt in, when you register you can choose opt-in remote learning with Su-Valley. And so, what that will look like is, you will be at home and your student will be at home and they will be on on-line curriculum, using the APEX curriculum. There’s instructional videos, everything you need is in that curriculum for students to work independently. And then we will have Su-Valley staff members and they will be where they can see if your students has logged in, how much time they’re spending, if they’re struggling at all, they’ll reach out to your student, they’ll be the motivator, they’ll check in with them, so they will be connected to a Su-Valley staff member. But the difference from last Spring is that they’re not instructing. I know some parents would not like to start the school year in person, they’d like to start on-line at home, so choosing the Su-Valley option will mean that can be seamless. You can be opt-in learning from home on a Thursday and decide this isn’t working for us, I want my kid in the building and they can show up on Friday. They’re a Su-Valley student.”
According to Ms Ellsworth, allowing students to access APEX from home, encourages students who aren’t feeling well to stay home and not fall behind on school work.
It also allows parents, who may not want to act as teachers for their children, to keep their students home without feeling like they’re homeschooling. For KTNA, I’m Colleen Love
