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School shutdown extended to April 3

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By Donnie A. Lucas

Albany teachers have remained busy over the last week transitioning to alternate delivery methods of education materials and content in the wake of the school’s closure due to the COVID-19 concerns.

The local district started a two-week closure to students last Monday that was due to end next Tuesday, but the shutdown was made mandatory statewide by Gov. Greg Abbott through April 3.

Like teachers around the state, local staff members have scrambled to prepare alternate ways to get instructional materials to students, primarily through online platforms or with paper packets for younger grades and students without internet access at home.

Teachers at the secondary level for grades 7-12 are mainly sending material online to students through Google Classroom. Several teachers have been using the online delivery system, while others had to be instructed by staff members who were more familiar with it.

“The transition process to online content has gone pretty well,” secondary principal Edward Morales said. “It was really nice that we had some teachers who were already experienced using Classroom, and they in turn helped others who were not as familiar with it.”

The principal added that additional software programs such as ScreenCast and Zoom are being incorporated to provide recorded video instruction, as well as live online meetings.

Math teacher Rick Davis conducted a live online meeting using Zoom with his calculus class Monday to help answer questions with an assignment.

“I was happy to be able to interact with my students again,” Davis said. “The process worked well, but I had a lot of help setting it up.”

Morales noted that while some classes have been very responsive to assignments posted to Classroom, others have not.

“We have about 20 percent or more of the students who have yet to respond to assignments, so the teachers and I have been contacting them or their parents to determine if there is a problem or they are just not taking this seriously,” he said. “The parents are going to have to help us and not just leave it up to their kids to get it done on their own.”

The principal stressed that assignments are still due by the deadline for each assignment; otherwise, teachers will be entering grades as “missing” or a zero.

“The students and parents need to realize that this is not a vacation,” he said. “This isn’t optional work. It will be graded and entered into Gradebook. We need parents to really monitor what their students have accomplished and turned back in.”

All secondary students were sent a parent request form for each class so parents can receive notices through e-mail concerning assignments. Parents only need to respond to just one of the requests in one class to have their e-mail populate to each of their student’s classes.

Parents can then request to receive summaries on a daily or weekly basis to monitor what their student is completing and what assignments are still pending.

Elementary principal John Gallagher said that a combination of printed weekly packets and online content was rolled out at his campus.

“It seems to be going great so far,” Gallagher said. “We have had almost all the packets picked up for the lower grades, but we are following up on the few that are still here.”

First and second graders had a packet ready last Wednesday or Thursday that was due back this Wednesday (yesterday). A new packet was ready then for the coming week.

The third grade staff sent their packets home last week, and they are due back on Friday. New packets will be ready to be picked up at the same time.

The fourth grade teachers are asking for packets to be returned on Monday, with another week’s worth of work ready to be picked up then.

Both the fifth and sixth graders have all had Chromebooks issued to them and are having assignments pushed out throughout through Google Classroom like the secondary students.

Teachers noted that the elementary staff is keeping in touch with parents through the Bloomz app, with some instructional videos also being incorporated to provide assistance with math assignments.

During an online meeting with the staff on Monday, superintendent Jonathan Scott said that he was pleased with the work that the staff has done to make instruction available to students.

“I’m impressed with the quick response by teachers,” he said. “Now we have to monitor student participation and continue to communicate with both the families and the students to ensure the best results.”

Scott said that anyone who does not have internet service at home should contact school officials and make them aware, especially if their student needs to have printed instructional materials rather than online.

High school English teacher Jennifer Everitt said that she made the transition to online quickly because most of the curriculum delivery for her English I and English III classes was already on Classroom.

“Right now the problem is getting students to respond to assignments,” she said. “I have about 75 percent who have turned in assignments, but the other 25 percent haven’t accessed their class assignments yet.”

Teachers are able to see if and when students work on assignments.

“Everyone needs to check Classroom often and watch the deadline dates,” she said. “I’ve had to start putting in zeros for the assignments that haven’t been worked on or returned. Maybe parents will see the alerts from Gradebook if they aren’t watching Classroom.”

Everitt was one of the teachers who is the most proficient in using Google Classroom, helping several others last week who needed a crash course.

“I can’t wait for everyone to be using it so we can collaborate more and get ideas from each other to provide the best curriculum possible,” she said.

Career and technology teacher Kevin Hill also helped teach other members of the staff in the use of Classroom, as well as conducting training at the elementary campus for teachers.

“Teacher training went well,” he said. “Teachers were forced to embrace the use of Classroom, but they seemed happy to do it in order to stay in contact with their students. Most seemed excited about the challenge, and some even have found new tools to use and taught me some things.”

Science teacher Dwayne Norton said that he was familiar with Classroom, but he is spending a lot of time searching for videos that demonstrate things that he would have conducted in the lab.

“I will start making my own videos when I have more time,” he said. “Right now I am trying to keep out of the weeds and get things posted to keep instruction continuing.”

Junior high language arts teacher Melanie Anderson said she is struggling with the switch to online instruction.

“Right now it’s overwhelming,” she said. “With the help of other teachers, I have been able to set up online classes and make a few initial assignments.”

Special education teacher Sara Wilson said that most of the content services she provides will be through printed materials.

“We have packets here and have contacted parents to come pick them up,” she said. “We can deliver materials to students if needed.”

Agriculture teacher Chris Beard said he is using Classroom just to make students aware of assignments.

“We already use an online curriculum call iCEV, a multimedia program for Career and Technology courses,” he said. “The kids know how to use it and turn in the work. They just will need to go to Classroom to see what I have assigned for each class.”