Preventing an achievement gap

Preventing an achievement gap

To council on corona stinger during this pandemic, children have been forced to switch to distance learning.

Youngsters without internet or self discipline risk falling behind.

???t news three's?

Kaleb gillock?

Joins us with a look at how that challenge is being met./// katie and george?

I talked with both rochester and albert lea schools today and they both tell me that teachers are taking attendance to make sure that students are still logging in to class.

However?

The biggest challenge has just been getting technology into the hands of every student.

One of the things we had to work on as a district was making sure that everyone had high speed internet.

.

With schools closed, educators have turned to distance learning?

Requiring both computers and bandwidth.

Mark grossklaus?

The principal at albert lea high school?

Says his district moved quickly to meet those needs.

?5 students didn't have one on one devices they had carts in the buildings and had them at school so our district deployed every kid ?12 now has a device in their home plus if they didn't have high speed internet, now they've got hotspots.

Grossklaus concedes there are some students with a history of attendance issues who aren't consistently logging in to do their work.

Albert lea educators believe flexibility is key in this environment..

We're not keeping them confined to a certain time?

We keep kind of a wide open window because we know some of our students aren't unless they're getting on the bs and a forced to come to school they wouldn't normally get up at nine o'clock or eight o'clock in the morning and so we understand they might work at night little more.

Being fully supportive of the students requires the district to also be supportive of parents..

Today we're actually doing virtual conferences with parents and so staff is reaching out to parents either via a phone, email, text, uh google meet to connect with our parents especially the ones who might have students who are struggling as far as the students getting behind?

Grossklaus says he's not concerned because teachers are only focused on the essential state standards... and students will likely need a refresher once school resumes.

Thanks, kaleb.

The distance learning period is scheduled to last until the end of the month.

Grossklause (gros?close) expects more information next week on when and if