Return to Learn approved

Creston Community School Board approved the district Return to Learn plan Monday at a special board meeting at 801 N. Elm St. and via an electronic platform.

The plan has three options: in-person learning, hybrid learning and on-line learning. Superintendent Deron Stender said the school will be starting the hybrid learning model unless circumstances change.

The hybrid model allows parents to choose if their child will attend school in person or online.

Union County currently sits at 4% coronavirus positivity rate, which allows for in-person instruction. If a county reaches 10%, school districts can ask for a waiver to move all schooling online. At 15% plus 10% student absences, schools can provide hybrid or all online model for two weeks for specific buildings or district wide. At 20% schools can temporarily move to all online schooling.

“Our primary question was the safety of the students first ... then the quality of instruction on a consistent basis,” he said.

Parents will choose the model for their child during the registration process.They can change their minds if the platform they choose does not work for their child.

Stender said it was important to allow parents to switch their students’ learning platform during the semester so that a child who needs to move to online learning due to health issues or a child for whom online learning isn’t working can come back to the school without significant learning delays.

Stender said teachers and students will be encouraged to take their electronic devices home every day in case there is a change in the status of in-person schooling where students are not allowed to be in the building.

In the elementary school, some teachers will be working with students in class, while others focus on online classes. Teachers in each grade will collaborate in order to keep learning in sequence so that students who switch from online to in-class learning or vice versa will be able to follow along.

High school students who choose online learning will have the option of asynchronous learning —where they watch a previously recorded video of their classes — when needed.

Stender said the preference would be for students to be “in class” during the appointed class time so that they can participate more fully, but the district understands that this may not always be possible. This availability may vary from class to class.

Visitors will not be allowed in the buildings for the first few weeks.

“We want to make sure we have our sanitizing practices down, our visitor security and safety down,” Stender said. We just need a little bit of time to make sure our systems are in place before we start letting other individuals come into our buildings.”

Masks

Masks will be required in the school building when students cannot be six feet apart. Stender said there will be built in breaks for students to remove their masks so that they do not have to wear them for the entire eight hours they are in the building.

There will be exemptions for students who medically cannot wear masks, Stender said. However, exemptions will not be provided for political preferences.

“We don’t want to prevent kids from coming to school,” he said. “If it’s a political view, sorry we’re not in that business. We’re in the business of safety, doing the best we can to make sure all our students and staff and community members are safe and healthy.”

The district has not finalized plans for lunch time. Stender said the tables will be spread out as much as possible. However, they realize the relationships and socializing that occurs during that time are also an important part of school.

Transportation

Busing students will look different this year as well. Rural students will be picked up first and taken to the school buildings. Family groups will be asked to sit together, loading the bus from the back to the front to minimize interaction between students. Masks will be required.

In-town routes will pick students up in neighborhoods rather than the bus stops that have been used in the past. More routes around town will allow smaller groups of students to be on the buses at any one time. Once again, buses will load from back to front and masks will be required. Hand sanitizer and masks will be available on the buses.

There will be yard signs placed next week to indicate where the new stops will be. These stops may change as the year progresses.

“We will monitor that and make adjustments to that because we don’t know how many kids will be riding the buses,” Stender said.

Stender said it will be helpful if parents can bring their children to school rather than have them use the bus system.

The full draft of CCSD's Return to Learn plan is available at https://www.crestonschools.org/return-to-learn.