NEW PALESTINE — Thanks to last year’s wicked winter, many students throughout the county ended up going to classes after Memorial Day to make up for several snow days.
To keep that from happening again, Southern Hancock school officials are considering an alternative teaching strategy that could eliminate snow makeup days altogether.
The solution: Students safely at home during inclement winter weather would essentially log in to their classrooms via computer.
It’s a form of eLearning, a program launched by the Indiana Department of Education designed to support schools interested in exploring innovative approaches to school schedules. Southern Hancock is positioned to join the program because all of its students have access to school-issued computers.
If everything goes according to plan, the program could be in place this school year.
The SH School Board heard about the option during a work session earlier this week when Superintendent Lisa Lantrip and the district’s curriculum director, Rhonda Peterson, broached the subject.
After talking with DOE officials, SH administrators learned the district might qualify for the online program.
“There will be an application coming out at the end of September that we will have to apply for to be able to do that,” Lantrip said. “We’ll have to meet all of the criteria, whatever that criteria is.”
Peterson said one of the main issues they’ll have to figure out is how they will be able to provide breakfast and lunch for students on the free and reduced-cost programs.
“We’ll also need to figure out how we deal with students who need special education accommodations,” she said. “We’ll need to work through that and all of the other pieces.”
And of course, all children must have access to computers.
Currently SH is the only district (in Hancock County) where all students have one-to-one computers.
Greenfield-Central Superintendent Harold Olin likes the idea of eLearning and is hoping his district will have such an option for their students in the next few years.
“We simply are not prepared for that yet,” Olin said.
Just this week, G-C officials moved a step closer to putting devices in the hands of every student.
Administrators are seeking feedback from parents, teachers and local residents on a variety of topics related to digital learning; namely, which devices would be best for families.
Mt. Vernon Superintendent Bill Riggs said while some students have computers, the district has a long way to go.
“We are working on identifying the needed infrastructure to enable us to move in that direction,” he said.
While Eastern Hancock students do have one-to-one computing in grades 6-12, the district does not have the same options for kindergarten through fifth grade, Superintendent Randy Harris said.
Still, eLearning appears to be the wave of the future.
In the 2012-13 school year, the DOE launched a Flex Pilot Program in which six school districts – Zionsville; Wabash County; Noblesville; Porter Township (Porter County); Maconaquah; and Attica school districts – embarked on eLearning initiatives.
It allowed districts to deliver instruction to children when they’re not in the school building.
Twelve districts have successfully completed the application process and have been selected for the program this school year.
While the virtual learning options for inclement weather are different from the eLearning Flex Program, they in essence serve the same purpose: giving districts options for teaching when students can’t make it to school.
“I have a few superintendent friends who were able to do this last winter, and they were pleased with the results,” Riggs said. “I think it has positive potential.”
Peterson said it was State Superintendent Glenda Ritz who suggested giving districts an option for eLearning days during bad weather if they can prove they have the capability to pull it off.
“It’s a second piece to the eLearning Flex Pilot,” Peterson said.
The district is in discussion with teachers and administrators to see whether they can qualify for an eLeanring day during inclement weather.
“One of the things we will have to work out is we currently don’t allow our elementary school level children to take home their devices,” Peterson said. “We might try to do a pilot in one of the buildings where we will let them take them home.”
New Palestine High School English teacher Caroline Clayton said she has been actively lobbying for eLearning days for several years now.
“I think we should take full advantage of the technology we have at our disposal,” she said. “We should make effective use of time.”
She said there are multiple advantages of eLearning such as allowing the students to complete the work at their pace, in the order they choose, in any location they choose.
“Students (will) still have time to shovel snow and build snowmen,” Clayton said.
Still, there is a downside to eLearning, she noted, saying it cannot replace the teacher-student relationship; teachers must establish an online forum to answer students’ questions; and that the setup might not be ideal for all students.
“But, we’re not talking about a steady diet of eLearning,” Clayton said. “Once classes reconvene, teachers can address questions and extend and enrich content. It’s a win-win.”
As for parents, Tracey Ebert, who has three children in SH schools, said having an eLearning day during bad weather would work fine for her family.
“I work from home, so I’d be OK with it,” Ebert said. “I also have a background in education, so it wouldn’t be a problem for us, but I would worry for those children whose parents might not be as involved and may not be there to make sure their kids get the work done.”
Still, she feels it would be a win-win for most students and staff, saying it would be nice to not have to make up days due to bad weather.
“Absolutely, I’d be in favor of that,” she said.
Peterson said the goal will be to apply for eLearning before the bad weather hits this year.
“We know it’s a pretty lofty goal, but, it’s what we’d like to do,” Peterson said. “We think we can pull it off. This is just one of the many benefits of moving to one-to-one with our district.”
Both Peterson and Lantrip said eLearning is a great strategy for maximizing valuable instruction time on a daily basis.
“We’ll be flipping the classroom and bringing it into the home where kids have access to learning 24/7 now and not just within the confines of our school building,” Peterson said.
The guidance and application for the coming year is still in development, DOE press secretary Daniel Altman said. He anticipates it will be ready for districts by the end of the month.