At their Aug. 18 meeting, the Windsor Unified School District Board of had a mercifully short, but important, agenda, relating to the impact of COVID-19 on the district. The meeting was conducted with particular alacrity as the board, who were all on Zoom, raced the predicted rolling blackouts from the heatwave. They managed to get all official business done before the blackouts removed their quorum.
Early in the meeting, student board member Ava Hamelburg gave a brief overview of her first day of school in distance learning.
“I don’t have a formal report or presentation due to no power, based off today’s classes, everyone seems to be pretty happy, all things considered,” she said. “Students feel, after having their first day, that they are pleasantly surprised by how well they understand distance learning, how smooth the transition and how they are able to still make a connection with teachers and classmates. The teachers are being great about saying if you get kicked out (of the Zoom) don’t worry, I’ll let you back in.”
Since a review of the distance learning plan for the district was the first presentation of the night, that set a good tone for the work that’s gone into the district’s plan.
The presentation was given by Superintendent Jeremy Decker, Educational Services Director Lisa Saxon and Chief Business Officer Lois Standring and it outlined the work — and decisions — that have gone into creating the current distance learning model.
Decker described the work that had gone into creating agreements with the districts labor partners. A Memorandum of Understanding for the upcoming school year has been signed with the classified union, the California School Employees Association (CSEA), and it covers not only distance learning, but also should the district transition to a hybrid or cohort model later in the year.
It utilizes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and California Department of Public Health (CDPH) guidelines for safety and sanitization, and also codifies that some employees may be asked to perform duties not part of their normal work. For instance, transportation employees could assist with temperature checks, cleaning, safety enforcement, student supervision, childcare, communications, distribution of safety materials, and office and food service support.
The agreement being finalized with the Windsor District Educator’s Association (WDEA) covers distance learning only, and includes a remote-work agreement for teachers who do not feel comfortable teaching, even in distance learning, from their classrooms (though that is encouraged/preferred) and an agreement for those who do teach on site to be able to bring their own children with them, as long as a liability waiver is signed.
On Aug. 14, Instructional and Technology Services Director
Brad Rigney and his staff distributed devices and hot spots to families that needed them for distance learning. He said that they had predicted, based on parent surveys, to need 620 devices, they ended up distributing 794, with the opposite for hot spot of needing to give out 37 but only giving out 21.
Rigney reports that the district currently has 133 devices and 158 hotpots left, which he classified as a good number to “have enough for spares and breakage.” He warned however that given the nationwide shift to distance learning, it is getting harder and harder to procure devices.
“We’re facing a global device shortage,” Rigney said. “Every school and student is clamoring to get them and as we are trying to order them, others are as well.”
Saxon then described the schedule and plan for distance learning. She said the district had applied as a “frequent live interaction” district, and that live interaction is defined as “interaction with certificated employees and peers for purposes of instruction, progress monitoring and maintaining school connectedness.”
For grades TK through five, that will happen five days a week. For grades six through 12, it will occur four days a week for all students and five days a week for those in need. For those upper grades, Wednesdays will generally by asynchronous learning, though it will allow for synchronous check-ins and support for students who are struggling.
Attendance and engagement are two items required by the new California bill that deals with the requirements of distance learning. Though the average daily attendance used to determine funding will be taken from last year’s enrollment numbers, attendance figures taken daily from this year will be used for other documentation such as testing, assessments and unduplicated pupil counts. Attendance will be taken daily for synchronous learning, and for those grades with asynchronous learning (grades six to 12) asynchronous attendance will be taken weekly as via their completion of a task or project.
“If a student is disengaged more than three days in a week, it will trigger a re-engagement action, that starts with outreach to students and families to figure out the challenges and to figure out how to remove obstacles,” said Saxon.
Saxon also briefly touched on the various platforms that would be used by teachers, including Google Classroom as their overall learning management system; Zoom Pro for video communication and teaching; Screencastify that helps teachers create recordings; Flipgrid, a video discussion tool that requires students to post video responses; Bloomz for connecting teachers and parents; and blended and online learning for student engagement.
Standring briefly touched on the food and nutrition programs available for families. Over the summer, the district had provided food to any minor under the age of 18. With school back in session they are no longer allowed to do so, and recipients must sign up for the service. Families will receive weekly food boxes with five days’ worth of breakfast and lunch for each child.
Employees will be required to perform self-assessments every morning before coming to work.
“We want to make sure anybody who sick is staying home, if there are any questions about them being sick, they are staying home,” Decker said.
Among the safety and sanitization protocols in place will be required physical distancing, face coverings worn at all times unless a teacher or staff members is alone in a room, frequent handwashing, Plexiglas partitions and rigorous cleaning and sanitizing protocols.
“We’ve decided what rooms are going to be used, and we have a system where it will be logged if a classroom is used, so we’re not using cleaning resources on a room that’s not being used. And, we will be moving furniture around to make cleaning easier and enforce social distancing,” Decker said.
The last discussed of the plan was childcare, a concern for parents everywhere. Standring said that Extended Child Care (ECC) and the Boys and Girls Club would be offering childcare and distance learning support to students in the district. The Boys and Girls club program would be supported by the districts with money from their ASES grant in order to provide a sliding scale of enrollments cost, and that the club has been given the Windsor Middle School multi-purpose room to run additional operations out of.
In addition to employees being able to bring their children with them to work, there will be accommodation and/or special leave available for employees whose children’s’ schools, if not Windsor, may be canceled or curtailed due to COVID.
Other agenda items of interest
- Construction manager Eric Van Pelt gave a presentation on various construction projects throughout the district, and despite COVID they are all on schedule. However, he had good news for the board that a recent project sent out to bid had come in $2 million lower than budgeted for, and stated that due to COVID, constructions costs were plummeting and that districts were being encouraged to get as many project completed in the next year as possible to enjoy the cost savings.
- Windsor High School Athletic Director Jaime Williams shared what information she could about the upcoming sports seasons for high school athletes. At present, the normal three seasons have been shrunk to two, with the season starting in December (though that is potentially subject to change). Things like concussion baselines can now be done at homer with an online assessment, and coaches have been offering virtual training and maintain distancing and mask wearing for in-person practices and conditioning. The only two sports starting this fall will be e-sports and competitive cheer. Fall sports will become winter sports, and winter sports will be pushed into a concurrent spring season.
- Related, the North Valley League, which runs sports at the middle school level, which for Windsor means Cali Calmecac and Windsor Middle School has mandated full cancelation of all fall sports, with a decision to be made later concerning winter sports.
