by Joseph Back k Some will like the decision, and others will not. But for

those parents of public school students who haven’t yet made

the choice between either online school or hybrid learning

this Fall, the Hastings School District is asking to know what parents have decided by this Friday, August 14th, so that it

might plan as needed for instructional needs. In addition, the district is asking that families commit “for a semester at a

time” or up to January 14 at present. These, among other

points, were touched on in the meeting on what to expect instruction- wise for Hastings this school year. The ultimately recommended and approved default for students in Hastings

this Fall? Hybrid learning! So what exactly does that mean?

A special school board meeting on Monday August 10 helped answer that question.

“Alright. So our one action item today is to do the learning model resolution,” Hastings School Board Chair Kelsey Waits announced at 8:07 a.m. on Monday August 10.

See HYBRID LEARNING Page 3 Hybrid Learning

From Page 1

“We discussed this last week and now we’ve set up a meeting today to kind of

of_cially recognize the resolution. Stephanie will read it. Do we have any discussion ahead of time?” The Hastings School District had previously sent out a parent survey asking for community input on the matter. Waits said that the decision was complicated and that the board appreciated the community’s patience “as we continue to _gure out what Fall is going to look like”

and beyond in terms of school. From there, Hastings Superintendent Robert McDowell took over.

“So with that, it moves us into our resolution for today,” McDowell told the school board, asking them to pass a resolution for “base learning” in the form of a hybrid model.

Under said hybrid model, students will be divided into two cohort groups titled “A” and “B,” with group “A” attending school on-site on Mondays and Tuesdays, while group “B” will attend on-site school Thursday and Fridays, with Wednesdays as a Flex Day. On school weeks with less than _ve days there will not be a _ex day. As to what that might look like for each grade level, the following is known: In terms of pre-school age, there are 180 total slots, with 58 con_rmed for general education and 48 con_rmed for ECSE. Survey participants showed no interest in distance learning, making it all in person, with programming that would stay the same and use a co-teaching model, plus the option of collapsing sections if needed.

For the Elementary, the school day would run from 9:40 a.m. until 3:25 p.m., with all three elementary schools running the same time schedule. In addition, each cohort would be divided into three groups by grade. At three-week intervals each student will have “an in-person experience with their assigned teachers and a specialist teacher.” Specialist teachers will rotate to a different group every three weeks.

For middle school, the instructional day will run from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and students are divided into learning groups to experience three 100 minute classes each day. Periods 1, 3, and 5 will be taught for ten days, followed by periods 2,4, and 6 for ten days, in alternating fashion.

Getting into high school, the school day is scheduled to run from 7:50 a.m. until 1:50 p.m., with three 85 minute periods in a day. 1, 3, and 7 will run for four and a-half weeks, and 2,4, and 6 will run for four-and-a-half weeks. Students will participate in period 5 and an advisory period for 45 minutes each day.

Regarding _ex days under the model, students will not be in buildings, nor will school transportation run. The existence of a _ex day

is to create a window of separation between the two cohort groups and allow for a deep clean of school buildings midweek. Flexible learning days are “intended to be asynchronous,” and also allow for “just in time” PD for staff members, along with an opportunity to connect with students. So what if on-site learning isn’t for you? In that case, there’s always the Online Academy option!

Under the Online Academy offering, the elementary will run with district curriculum and staff, while the upper grades were somewhat different. Board member Brian Davis had a question to ask McDowell about the online option.

“Just so we’re clear, publicly…whose curriculum is it and who’s teaching it?” Davis asked. McDowell answered that the district had chosen Edgenuity as having a proven online record and meeting Minnesota standards. District teachers would be utilized with Edgenuity content, and the online platform offers not just core, but elective and AP class options as well. McDowell said that if only one student signed up for an AP course, it may be possible that such a student would be enrolled with an Edgenuity teacher, due to practical staf_ng considerations.

“We’re not going to set aside one teacher, for one class, for one student,” Mc-Dowell said of the Online Academy, which Davis said addressed his concern in part of potentially doubling teacher’s workloads. Returning to the board theme of some liking the decision and some not so much, Chair Kelsey Waits had remarks to share on the board’s hybrid default.

“We recognize that this is a really complicated decision and that not everyone is going to be happy with this,” Waits said. “Change is really the only constant here, and we’re working on that _exibility.” Superintendent McDowell also shared some of the parent survey responses that led to the board decision and the quickening pace to _rst school day of the year.

“Wednesday was the day that things got real, really fast, for a lot of people,” he said. “And not just for us. That was for districts around the state.” With several different options to choose from, community concerns ran the spectrum.

“On the one hand,” McDowell said, were “families that said, ‘I don’t want my kids in school at all. Figure out how to do distance.’” On the other hand were those who said, “how do we get all of our kids back in school because that’s the way my kids learn the best?” McDowell reported. Other concerns had to do with mitigating risk with cleaning and other measures, while staff wondered how to do both on-site and distance teaching, but also had concerns that crossed back into the parent zone touching on their own kids.

“Now we’re going to be hitting the phase where people can ask questions of principals,” McDowell said, as principals were meeting with their staffs this week, before going on.

“As I replied to a lot of parents this week, I’d love to have more speci_cs, but

we’re building this thing as we stand on it,” he said, acknowledging that it wasn’t exactly what parents wanted to hear but that the Hastings District wasn’t alone, with other districts in the same situation. The school district was working to go fast, but also slow enough to be steady in its planning, and so avoid throwing parents a curve ball surprise at the last minute.

McDowell said that resolution under consideration also “shares with the community that we’re well aware that we’re going to be moving between more of that and less of that,” and that the district has only put the calendar for the coming school year out to Thanksgiving in order not “to promise or set in stone” things that might then have to be changed. The Hastings school board later approved the hybrid model unanimously.

Hastings School Board and community members listen to Superintendent Robert McDowell speak on Hastings Community T.V. From Left to right in the top row are: Board Chair Kelsey Waits; John/Jane Q. Public; Stephanie Malm, Clerk ; middle row: David Pemble; Lisa Hedin; Superintendent Robert McDowell; and in bottom row: Becky Beissel; Scott Gergen; and Brian Davis. Image Courtesy Hastings Community TV on Facebook.