Contact School District of La Crosse
807 East Avenue South
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601
(608) 789-7600
https://www.lacrosseschools.org/

Transcription is for SEO only

37 years in the education business and the lasting a last dozen or so into working in administration probably didn't see this coming at all. At the at the end of your career for sure. As we look at this and we look at the on the pandemic of a look at the school closings that we've had what you think. You think will be different in the future. Randy because of this I wish I knew. I wish I could provide everyone with a really clear description of what this is going to be like I can't and I think that one thing is really it's becoming clear to me though is that it's never to be the same it. If this is our education and the way we do education the way we see education is never going to be the same essay that the most simple way because I do believe that even though our work in remote learning. We jumped into that and at times may be haphazard and not at the same level of quality. Perhaps others of face-to-face classroom. We also know that we've got. We have some some students out there. We have some families out there that like that stay like that method of delivery and usually we leave kind of remote learning and online learning as an option that we think about after everything else has failed. Well, you could try reading on that strontium online and I think it's time for us to make sure as we talk about us being the school district of choice to make sure that a remote learning opportunity is considered a viable part of education. When I extrapolate that out into the future. Just a little bit. Part of the immediate future is you don't goodness. What we do in July we got summer school and we have two schools that are on your own calendars and what's going to happen with them in July. Are we gonna be able to start school with them in July so that's one of the that's one of the upcoming questions that were having to answer were just waiting for the next kinds we want to know more about okay, what's after this current safer at home, executive order, there's gotta be something there, since you gotta be some sort of a statement that says okay here's the pattern that were in now until further notice, or until a particular date summer, waiting for that shoe to drop, so that we know better how is this can impact you live in summer school on your own calendars. I have to tell you I also think that even when we get to September. Not so certain that schools can be the same way in September is that as it was last September. To be honest with you, and I think we have to prepare ourselves for that and you know there's a whole process of gotta go through the grieving process when you realize that it's knocking to be the same, but I think once you get through that process. You also then can quickly move in the process of a gate what you can be and what's our opportunity where are we and what how can we make this great because I still think inside of a really huge challenge that were in right now. There's always opportunity our administrative team is been meeting virtually three times per week. I'd be lying if I told you that I love these virtual meetings in my face-to-face guy myself, but I'm getting really tired of these virtual meetings, but else I will be got a good group of folks and what were talking about is Chris trying to extrapolate out to the fall what you know what could this mean so were actually starting to run some scenarios, what would it be like for instance if we had to do school in the fall and we had to do social distancing can we even do it so we been exploring models. For instance, and the models of you in exploring that might be. We arty have a six day cycle ABC DEF you help and so on may be. As it turns out just so that we can only have 1/3 of the students in the school buildings at any one time that students come to school maybe two out of the six days and then their home for out of the six days. Now think about the ramifications for that home, especially if parents are starting themselves if they haven't been working to get themselves back in the workplace and trying to stabilize their homes financially and now 4/6 days. Their children are still going home want to know what is that look like and how how does that work and how do we guarantee which I don't know that we can. How do we guarantee that the parents who do send their children to school in the fall. What will be social distancing. When you've got so many things that are if common need, whether it's general going on the hall are going to use the restroom or it's the media center, or it's the the cafeteria and we would have to re-teach and help think about our kindergarten, first and second graders. Many of them who you know I think we can teach them. Certainly, here's how to do social distancing, and here's all works but since it's a whole new world that we can have to get into if we were to decide that we can even deliver school that way in the fall. I could not imagine having your job at this moment. One of the biggest challenges I think that has come about as a result of all this. Our work in equity to try to bring it together and give every student equal chance equal footing as much as we can. That really took a huge step backwards when we were required to do this now. I think that doing a remote learning situation is better than doing nothing at all, so building the relationships think connected to students is really important. I can imagine the discussion at the state level because at the state level know the guidance that we were given is okay. We need to shut down our schools by whatever date and so school is out will put in the place a lot of contingencies so that you can don't have to worry about the hours and minutes in meeting those but bargain-hunting over to shut this down what you realize that when we shut it down. Think about statewide. The number of school districts who were not able to do anything when it comes to remote learning. Maybe they're able to do some connecting and just some relationship building, but because of their circumstances or because they don't have the robust technology supports that we do here in the cross the Internet. For instance, just think about how all of a sudden students don't have access and so I think that what one of the things that has happened. State level and it translates into local level is you really see even clearer the discrepancies and also the inequities that are there. If we don't have school face-to-face if we don't have school to gather everyone coming together somehow because they're there and every home has a different learning environment. Some homes have environment that are really plush with books and supports in moms and dads that are there to help and others don't. That's no fault of the parents as much as it is a circumstance that makes it really sometimes more difficult for a child to have the resources at his or her fingertips to be able to do the homework and support the homework