Some fairly big news from the 02/22/2021 Board of Education meeting. The Appleton Area School District is planning to return 5-6 graders to 5 day a week in-person instruction and move 7-12 graders to 4 day a week in person instruction. March 15th is the date they are targeting for 5-6 graders and April 5th is the target date for moving 7-12 graders to their new instruction model. [I don’t remember 4 day a week instruction being one of the instructional models approved by the Board of Education, but I may just be misremembering.]
Jim Clemons pushed the leadership team to really try to get the 7-12 graders back earlier than that. He thought it would make sense, if possible, to get them back in person a week or two prior to Spring Break. He was concerned that if the rollout didn’t go smoothly they’d abruptly move students back to the current hybrid model, but getting them back a couple weeks earlier would allow them to use Spring Break as a natural buffer when students won’t be in school anyway in order to work out any kinks that arise during the initial switch over to more in person learning.
Deb Truyman agreed with him that getting them back earlier is something to strive for. AASD took a chance bringing students back when numbers were higher, and now numbers are decreasing. She thought now was the time to take another chance and bring students back sooner. Six weeks is a long time, and she thought now was the time to bring them back; they’ve been out of school almost a year already.
District leadership is working on how to fit all of these students in their buildings. Space was an issue even before the pandemic, and now the pandemic has simply more visibly demonstrated that issue. They will be relying on podding, but how that podding will look depends on classroom layouts and sizes. In one room they may be able to divide a class of 30 students into 15 pods of two students whereas in another they might have to divide them into 10 pods of 3 students.
Gary Jahnke wanted to know what the cutoff will be for families to determine whether they want to be learning in-person or utilizing the virtual instruction model.
Per Nan Bunnow, with every change in model, they’ve opened up the option for students to change whether they’re virtual or in-person/hybrid. They have not closed the window in which students can move between models. They’ve been looking at each individual case.
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