Grants Pass Superintendent talks about plans for fall

The District is holding out hope of having grades K-3 attending in-person classes.

"here's a live look at ashland from the oregon shakespeare festival.

Watching out for you, this is newswatch 12 at 4."

Continuing our school watch coverage tonight, grants pass school, district seven announced this week that students will start school online with only the possible exception being students in kindergarten through third grade.

Joining us right now to discuss the school district plan and potential adjustments is a district superintendent.

Kurt kolbe.

Thanks for being with us tonight.

Thanks for having me.

So you hosted two town halls right yesterday.

Were there any common concerns raised that you'd like to address for those who may not have attended?

Yeah, there were a couple of things that stood out.

The first one is a great concern that we have, and it's about working parents and how they're going to ensure that their children, especially their little ones are able to tend to the schedule of learning opportunities we'll have for them another common, uh, concern or question actually not so much of concern was are we going to be able to offer electives in distance learning like music and band and, uh, career technical education and such.

So it appears grades k through three might be able to open in classrooms. when will, you know, if that's able to have, well, it's more about when we're able to know when it cannot happen.

Those three weeks prior to the opening day of school will dictate everything we do with any one of those.

We don't meet the metrics.

We know we're going to have to go to comprehensive distance learning for our k through three.

How did the curriculums for the comprehensive distance learning ngp online differ?

So gp online is a newly purchased comprehensive virtual curriculum.

A comprehensive distance learning is a combination of new technology tools we have with existing adopted curriculum and other technology resources.

That's really what percentage of students have opted for comprehensive distance learning in gp online.

So, yeah, that data is actually in, and it's pretty fresh and it's a, about 2% or less.

And so, uh, initially we thought it was going to be about 200 students to 300 students.

Uh, but we called every single one of those to make sure they understood the difference.

And most of them have turned and opted for the comprehensive distance learning with the potential to return on a hybrid or fully in person for k three.

Do you know how many students have yet to choose either option?

Uh, we are still enrolling students, uh, through our digital enrollment process.

Uh, and then we are, uh, referring them that direction.

We have a deadline, uh, set out there of august 14th to register for gp online because we have to staff it and we really need to know how many want that option.

Can a student who obs for gp online changed their mind and opt into comprehensive distance learning or returned to classrooms. once it's deemed safe.

Optimally, if you're going to choose gp online, we're hoping you'll commit to it for the full school year, but there will be opportunities most likely at the break in terms such as the quarter or semester for switching programs, there's a lot of options to break down here.

Is there anything else you'd like people to know about returning to school safely?

Well, i want to encourage families to be very informed in our update or website is updated regularly with a very long faq and a variety of other things out there to help explain the options.

All right.

Kurt kolbe, joining us.

Thank you so much for