The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is gearing up for a launch of their distance learning program on Monday, March 30. The latest step is the district’s new remote learning web hub, which launched on Wednesday.
Pegge Erkeneff of the KPBSD says that this internet hub will finally get students back into the routine of learning, despite doing it away from the school house: “The web page will be a go-to resource as we transition from interacting with students face-to-face in classrooms to remote learning. There is a lot of general academic and support links on that page to help serve the academic needs of all of our learners, and it’s important to know that all of our teachers and educators are working carefully to make sure that our students have an appropriate balance of online and offline work. So, students aren’t going to be spending too much time in front of a computer. And, to define the appropriate amount of work for students to do in a remote-learning environment, and that’s based on age and grade-span.”
The primary method of education delivery will be online, but the district is committed to ensuring that no student is left out, regardless of technological limitations: “We want to ensure that every student has access to learning materials and activities, regardless of a computer or internet access at home. So, even though the delivery of the remote learning instruction will be primarily online, parents and students will have access to hard copies of the materials as-needed. We encourage the parents to be talking to their teachers or their school principal.”
In addition, there are protocols in place to backstop the offline distance learning program. Each school will establish a process or location outside of their building where materials will be available for parent or student pick-up. Prior to pick up, the school will clearly communicate their process to families. Also, no paperwork or other offline learning materials or assignments given to a family will be allowed to return to the school. To return offline assignments to teachers for grading, families could scan and email materials, take photos to e-mail to the teacher, or relay answers via telephone to the teacher.
Ms. Erkeneff says that the launch of the distance learning program is a huge step forward for the school district: “This is a big lift. There’s a lot of nervousness. There’s gonna be bumps, but all-in-all, we are doing some historic, extraordinary work.”
To learn more, visit https://www.kpbsd.k12.ak.us/content.aspx?id=41596.