School calendar draft No. 7 gets nod of approval

A seventh draft of a 2020-21 school calendar passed the test and was approved by the Holyoke School District Re-1J Board of Education at its April 7 meeting.

Five board members, two principals and the business and finance director attended the meeting remotely, while only the superintendent, secretary, board president and newspaper reporter attended in person, due to social distancing mandates.

Superintendent Kyle Stumpf noted that calendar draft No. 7 incorporated the input from the board’s March 23 meeting.

He cited that he feels this adopted calendar shows teachers that the district cares about and appreciates them.

New this year will be early-release Fridays once a month instead of the current year’s late-start Mondays. Students will be released after the morning classes, and teachers will stay for inservice. There will potentially be daycare type services for staff members’ children.

In addition to the early-release Fridays, there will also be one Friday per month in which there is no school for staff or students. This was the major change from calendar draft No. 6.

Full-day parent-teacher conferences are scheduled for Thursdays, Oct. 22 and March 11, both followed by a full day off on Friday.

Additional scheduled breaks include a full week at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas, and scheduled Fridays off during regional wrestling and state basketball.

It was pointed out that the staggered start date will be utilized again in August, based on its success last year. Students in grades 7-12 will start school Wednesday, Aug. 19, while K-6 students will report on Thursday, Aug. 20.

End-of-year status still pending

While it looks unlikely that students will be able to return to face-to-face learning this school year, Stumpf said they’ll be watching the directive of Gov. Jared Polis. The suspension of in-person instruction in Colorado schools at this point has been extended by Polis through April 30.

Stumpf said he wants teachers and students to have hope that they could have some kind of interaction before the summer break. He also said there could be value in just making a decision to close for the rest of the school year unless the governor says students can return.

Information is updated several times a week, and the district is watching that closely.

Stumpf said he is pleased with what the staff has been able to do with online learning in a very short amount of time and also appreciates what parents are doing at home.

To make sure all students had ample internet availability for the online instruction, Stumpf said PC Telcom officially hooked up 50 households. The district was also trying to get hotspot connections for three families who didn’t have fiber options.

If face-to-face instruction can’t be resumed for the rest of the school year, Stumpf reiterated that he still wants some kind of ceremony/closure for the graduating seniors and their families. It may not occur in May but hopefully at least sometime during the summer.

Board member Jon Kleve asked about a potential expectation of the district to maintain a rolling stay-at-home plan to be able to go back to if needed.

Stumpf said the model the district is using is in a format that they could come back to intermittently over the next year. “If we were required to continue non-face-to-face learning, we could take what we’ve done and make it better,” added Stumpf.

He sees a benefit this year in that they’re at the end of a school year. He pointed out that implementing a stay-at-home instruction plan would be much more difficult at the beginning of a school year when routines are not in place. It would be especially hard for the kindergarten students and teachers.

Online learning stats reported

Sharing usage statistics from district technology coordinator Perry Ingram and website and social media coordinator Stefan Betley, Stumpf updated the board at last week’s meeting.

Looking at student use of online learning, Stumpf said Ingram took random stats at 11 a.m. Monday, April 6. At that time, 22 Google Classrooms were going, and 164 students were active at that moment.

Stumpf said he had the pleasure last week to sit in on a high-needs special education Zoom class. He watched a 45-minute virtual lesson with the special education teacher and was very impressed with what the students were doing.

Betley’s report for hits on the district website showed high usage since the COVID-19 crisis.

The school calendar for 2019-20 showed 539 hits, while school supply lists posted last fall had 474 hits. Comparatively, since the crisis, there had been 506 hits on the letter about extended spring break and 222 hits on how to participate in a webconference.

Social media usage over the 28 days prior to the board meeting showed extreme increases. On Facebook, for example, new page likes were up 1,200%, post reaches were up 246%, and post engagement was up 378%.

Twitter impressions were up 86%, and overall profile visits were up 50%.

Stumpf was pleased to report that the district’s website partner, Apptegy, showcased 25 school districts who are doing a great job of communicating during school closures. Holyoke and St. Mary’s Academy in Denver were the two Colorado schools recognized.

Budget numbers delayed

Because the Legislature is not in session due to COVID-19 mandates, the budgeting process for school districts is challenging.

Stumpf told the school board last week that they’re anticipating a flat change, if not less money for operations for next year. The Legislature has to pass a school finance bill to designate the funding. Stumpf said he’s hearing that this bill is going to be very late and it doesn’t look favorable for school districts.

Business and Finance Director Ben Rahe concurred that it’s hard to even come up with a decent guess at this time. They’re trying to plan accordingly, but he noted that the rural funding information is key as well since it’s a big chunk of revenue.

Other business

In other business April 7, the Re-1J board:

— Approved Andrea Kammer as elementary school principal for the 2020-21 school year.

— Adopted three Colorado Association of School Boards’ revised policies on second reading. Topics included notification of school board meetings, superintendent’s conduct, and first aid and emergency medical care.

— Gave first-reading approval to CASB policies that were presented March 23. They covered electronic participation in school board meetings, school board member conduct and school board member financial disclosure.

— Reviewed CASB policies for students in foster care and student fees, fines and charges; and a new policy exhibit for a memorandum of understanding for school stability for students in foster care.

— Heard a winter sports report as prepared by activities director John Baumgartner.