Teachers and staff at Union Public School District are preparing to welcome students back in the fall, but the district is making contingency plans for distance learning just in case.
In a Board of Trustees meeting June 8, Superintendent Tyler Hansford said UPSD wants to be prepared to educate its students regardless of where they are.
“With the registration packets we’ve been putting out, we’re asking people to tell us, do you plan to send your students to school or would you prefer the online option,” he said.
While feeling out how parents are approaching the upcoming semester, Hansford said the district has also worked to prepare a list of equipment needed to conduct online learning. Union’s list included:
•500 chromebooks
•60 teacher laptops
•500 internet hotspots
•1000 Canvas accounts
•Training on distancing learning for students, parents, and teachers
•Full service online course offerings for K-12
•CIPA compliant internet filtering
The total cost of the equipment is about $350,000, Hansford said. Of that, UPSD would be required to chip in about 25 percent.
Right now, Hansford said the district is not guaranteed to receive the equipment. Instead, the Mississippi Department of Education asked each school district to submit a request for what it needed to conduct online distance learning. Should the state decide to move forward with the requests, the legislature would first need to appropriate about $250 million of Mississippi’s $1.25 billion CARES Act funds to fund it.
“We need to be ready if that’s what they say we’re going to do,” he said.
In addition to technology, there is one other hurdle to overcome if distance learning is how the state decides to move forward with public school education for the following year. The current law, Hanford said, makes it illegal.
The laws outlining how school districts can and cannot hold class allow for classes to be held in person or online, Hansford explained, but it does not allow for a combination of in-person and distance learning.
“Just last week we had a call with the Office of the State Auditor, and as of now, that’s not allowed,” he said.
Hansford said he expects the Legislature will vote to change or suspend certain laws, such as the way classes are held and attendance requirements, to make it easier on school district to educate students in the event distance learning is needed.
Several hurdles remain before distance learning can be incorporated in Union’s tool kit, but Hansford said a lot of people throughout the state are working on it. And, he said, it may be distance learning isn’t needed at all
