Frankie Urquhart, left, teaches science at Ketchikan’s Schoenbar Middle School. Henry Clark is a Ketchikan High School senior and president of the student body. (Images courtesy of Urquhart and Clark)

It’s been an odd school year across the country. Students and teachers in many places have spent the majority of the year learning from home.

But not in Ketchikan. After intense public pressure over the summer, the school board decided to start the school year much like any other — albeit with masks, health screenings, temperature checks, extra classroom space and a number of other pandemic precautions.

Students and teachers experienced the school year quite differently.

Last spring, Students in Ketchikan were about to leave for what was initially supposed to be a week-long spring break. Eventually, Alaska’s governor would close school buildings through the end of the school year.

Frankie Urquhart teaches science at Ketchikan’s Schoenbar Middle School. She had to rethink her entire lesson plan.

“How do I go from presenting material, hands-on labs — which is what we do a lot in my class — to, we are on Zoom?” she said. “It felt a lot like being a game show host, to be perfectly honest.”

To add flexibility, teachers were told not to take roll or teach new material.

“It was really, really hard and, you know, it was really frustrating for parents, it was frustrating for teachers and for students. And after a while the kids stopped tuning in, because they’re like, ‘There’s Ms. Urquhart tap dancing again. And we’ve seen her — she can’t dance,'” she said.

So how was it to be on the other side of the laptop screen? Henry Clark was a junior preparing for an AP test shortly after spring break.

“And that was really scary,” Clark said.

He was looking at colleges. So grades were important.

“I was really nervous about this year, this upcoming year, just because of all the education I was going to be missing,” he said.

Teachers were nervous, too. Urquhart was watching school board meetings as a parade of parents came forward to call on the school district to return students to classrooms full-time.

“It was frustrating, it was really frustrating. It was heartbreaking. It was mind numbing, and maddening — all of those things at once,” she said. “Because in the spring, people were praising teachers: ‘Oh, you guys are heroes, we’ve now tried teaching our own kids, and — aaahhh, take them back,’ you know, that kind of thing.”

But she said attitudes shifted over the summer as parents faced another year of having their kids at home staring at screens.

“There was this tide that seemed to turn that was like, ‘Get in there and do your job. You signed up for this kind of thing.’ And, um, yeah, I did, I did sign up to teach children — but not during a pandemic,” Urquhart said.

Urquhart said she lives with someone at high risk for a serious case of COVID-19. She felt betrayed when the school board ordered teachers back in classrooms full-time with students.

“I felt like I got kicked in the stomach,” she said. “And I know a lot of other educators felt very similarly. And so yeah, it felt like a roller coaster ride that I never wanted to get on. I am not a thrill seeker like that — I wanted to vomit, to be honest.”

The district later added safety measures, like temperature checks and mandatory masks for everybody in the buildings.

But still, she said, she was anxious about returning to the classroom in September. And that anxiety only multiplied after students returned. She said she wasn’t sure she’d be able to do her job effectively.

“If you want us to go back, I need to feel safe, as do my students. Because we all talk about trauma in school, and the number one rule is, if you don’t feel safe, you can’t learn,” she said. “Well, that goes both ways. If I don’t feel safe, I can’t teach.”

Urquhart said that while some teachers were excited to return to face-to-face education, that wasn’t the case for everyone.

“I know a lot of my colleagues have been anxious. I know a lot of them have been depressed, for a lot of different reasons,” she said. “I’m finally coming out of it now. But this has been — I mean, there have been times where I just could not go to school. I just didn’t have it in me to face that day. And I have never had this kind of issue my entire life until this year.”

Clark, now in his senior year, said the pandemic has also weighed on his psyche.

“I have some family members that I was a little worried about, not going to lie. But for the most part, my main concern was not health,” Clark said. “Especially by the time we got to school, my main concern was my education and my mental health.”

He said friendships have suffered, especially his relationships with people in lower grades. Lunches were split up to reduce crowding in the cafeteria.

Clark, left, plays saxophone through a mask and a mesh bag during a band concert. (Courtesy of Clark)

“If I have classes with them, I get to see them but during lunch I don’t get to, so then — I want to hang out with them, but I can’t,” he said. “You start to lose friendships. It starts to push and pull at you like that,” he said.

And so Clark said even with the high school running at full capacity for most of the year, an overwhelming sense of exhaustion pervaded the campus, which locals call Kayhi.

“Out of all my four years at Kayhi, I never felt like such an aggressive and hostile community at times,” he said. “Not to make it sound horrible — because even now, I wouldn’t say it’s nearly that bad. But out of my four years, a lot more people are on edge.”

Urquhart said she turned a corner this spring. She said she and other teachers are feeling better.

“I’m feeling more like myself,” she said. “And I will tell you what: Getting that first vaccine — ”

Urquhart paused, lifted her hands, and imitated a chorus of angels singing.

“My anxiety went from, like, on a scale of 10, I was at like a freakin’ 12, and getting that vaccine, I went down to, like, a five. And it was the most amazing thing,” she said.

Now that she’s fully vaccinated she said feels safer in the classroom — and it’s reminded her how much she loves teaching.

The post For Ketchikan teachers and students, it’s been a tough school year on the mental health front appeared first on KRBD.

A handbook of district emergency procedures sits in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District offices on Mar. 13, 2020. (Eric Stone/KRBD)

Most of Ketchikan’s middle- and high-schoolers will be spending less time in the classroom as the spread of COVID-19 continues. The school district announced Wednesday it’s switching over to a hybrid of online and in-person instruction through at least the end of November.

COVID-19 is spreading rapidly in Ketchikan, and officials hope that moving some classes online will help slow the spread. Ketchikan’s school board voted unanimously at an emergency meeting Wednesday to activate a new phase of its COVID-19 mitigation plan.

Earlier in the day, officials raised the local pandemic alert level to “high” after announcing that four people had been hospitalized. Pandemic response officials say they’re alarmed that more than 3% of coronavirus tests in Ketchikan are now coming back positive.

Schoenbar Middle School, Revilla Junior-Senior High School and Ketchikan High School — also known as Kayhi — will dial back to half capacity. That means most students at those schools will attend school in person two days a week and complete online lessons for the rest of the time. But there will be some exceptions for students with special needs.

Superintendent Beth Lougee said that after a two-day, all-online transition period, the three affected schools will move to the hybrid system on Monday. Faculty will teach from inside the school buildings.

“They will be providing the online learning just like we did during the 24-hour closure when we had a COVID case,” Lougee told the school board Wednesday.

The earliest students at Schoenbar, Revilla and Kayhi could return to the classroom full-time is Nov. 30. But that’ll only happen if the community’s risk level has fallen to “moderate” or “low.”

In the meantime, the rest of the district’s schools, including each of Ketchikan’s elementary and charter schools, will continue to hold classes in-person five days a week. That’s because with extra classroom space leased by the district, officials say there’s room to spread children out and reduce the risk of spreading the disease.

Houghtaling Elementary closed Thursday after school officials announced that a student had tested positive. It’ll reopen Friday, according to the school’s principal.

The move to a hybrid model comes as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in Ketchikan. At least 43 people are currently infected as of Thursday morning — with 37 testing positive in the past week. Those are both record highs for Ketchikan.

Ketchikan’s pandemic response chief, Abner Hoage, told the board by phone that it’s an effort to avoid more restrictive measures for the wider community.

“We’re really to a point where this is our last chance to slow this thing down before we get to a point where we need to go into lockdown. So every step that the school takes to try to help us minimize that spread in the community will go a long way,” he said.

“Fewer than a handful” of students have tested positive for COVID-19, Lougee said — the district has only reported four positive cases among students and staff, and at least one was a staff member. But Lougee says that especially in the past three days, state public health officials are telling more and more teachers to quarantine after potential exposure.

“Which then requires us to get subs, which is starting to put a strain, because we don’t have a big sub pool. So that is a concern of ours,” she said.

If Ketchikan’s community risk level rises to “very high,” all classes would go online.

Details of the plans for each individual school are posted at the district’s website.

This story has been updated with new information: Houghtaling Elementary School will reopen Friday.

The post Three Ketchikan schools will move to hybrid of in-person and distance learning as COVID-19 cases rise appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan High School in 2013. (KRBD photo)

Ketchikan High School will be closed all day Thursday after its first student tested positive for COVID-19. Superintendent Beth Lougee updated Ketchikan’s school board on the situation Wednesday, hours after the test results came back.

“We did receive word that we have our first student positive COVID case at Ketchikan High School. We immediately went into action with our protocols, notifying parents, working with public health and EOC. We have closed down Ketchikan High School, the whole building, district preschools will not be in session,” Lougee said.

The district had previously set aside Friday for parent-teacher conferences, which will proceed as planned.

The student has not been identified for privacy reasons. Lougee says contact tracing is underway, and staff and students will be notified when they’ll be allowed to return to classrooms

The high school, known locally as Kayhi, Lougee said, will be disinfected by a team from Ketchikan Pest Control and then deep-cleaned by custodial staff.

“Our other schools will remain open. And then — So, everybody else is expected to be at school tomorrow, except for the people who are housed in the high school,” Lougee said.

It’s the Ketchikan school district’s first confirmed case among the student body.

In August, a Ketchikan Charter School staff member tested positive just before students were to return to class. The charter school reopened after a 24-hour closure to allow deep cleaning.

Students attend classes in person five days a week in Ketchikan. Masks are required while at school, and staff members check students’ temperatures as they enter the building. That follows a 5-2 vote of the school board which opted for full-time instruction rather than distance learning.

The post Ketchikan High School to close for at least 24 hours after student tests positive for COVID-19 appeared first on KRBD.

Tongass School of Arts and Sciences is a Ketchikan charter elementary school. (KRBD file photo)

Ketchikan’s school district will spend as much as $130,000 leasing local churches for extra classroom space.

Leasing church buildings  would allow school officials to cut the number of students in each classroom in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus when school resumes September 8. It’s one of the safety measures teachers asked for at the board’s last meeting earlier this month.

The four churches the district asked to lease are Holy Name Catholic Church, South Tongass Alliance Church, First Assembly of God and Ketchikan Church of the Nazarene. The school board’s vote at its meeting Wednesday doesn’t require district officials to lease or use all four sites — it simply sets the maximum price for the district’s off-site classroom spaces at $130,000

So what’s the story for each school? Here’s the rundown:

As of this week, Houghtaling Elementary School administrators don’t anticipate relocating students to the church the district asked to lease — even if the pandemic worsens in Ketchikan. In an email to parents, principal Michael Cron wrote that by relocating preschoolers to a wing of Ketchikan High School, Houghtaling would be able to reduce the number of kids in each classroom to no more than 16.

Further south, Fawn Mountain principal Nick Higson told the Ketchikan Daily News that administrators plan to use its annex at South Tongass Alliance Church only if the pandemic worsens in Ketchikan. It would only be used in what the district calls a “medium-risk” scenario, the Daily News reported. That corresponds with a “high” pandemic threat level as defined by Ketchikan’s emergency operations center.

Tongass School of Arts and Sciences, one of the district’s two charter schools, is planning to use its annex site when school resumes just after Labor Day. Principal Scott Huff said via phone that the plan is to have kindergarteners, first-graders and second-graders at Tongass’s annex site. That’s the First Assembly of God.

Ketchikan Charter School plans to move sixth-, seventh- and eight-graders to Holy Name Catholic Church, according to a letter from principal Kayla Livingston and information posted on the school’s website.

The district’s four remaining schools are large enough for students to spread out without requiring extra space, according to the district’s business manager, Katie Parrott.

In other business, Ketchikan’s school board unanimously approved a three-year contract with Alaskan & Proud Market to supply half-pint containers of milk to the district through 2023. The district’s prior supplier, Tatsuda’s IGA, closed after a landslide this past winter.

The board also OK’ed a federally-mandated 10-cent price hike on school lunches. Elementary and middle school lunches will cost $3.60, and high-schoolers will pay $3.85 when they return to school.

The post Details of Ketchikan’s plan to spread students between schools and churches begin to emerge appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan School Board member Paul Robbins, Jr., right, speaks with teacher and Academic Decathlon coach Peter Stanton, middle, prior to an Aug. 12 board meeting. Teachers gathered to ask board members to approve pandemic safety measures for the upcoming school year as Ketchikan’s students return to classes five days a week. (Eric Stone/KRBD)

Classrooms will look different when Ketchikan’s students return to school this fall. Face masks will be mandatory. School staff will check for fevers. And some students could move from their regular school building to a classroom away from campus. That’s after Ketchikan’s school board voted to adopt pandemic safety measures after hearing from teachers and staff worried about their health as they return to classrooms.

Ketchikan’s school board got another earful from the public at its last meeting — this time, largely from teachers and staff members worried about their health as Ketchikan heads toward fully reopening schools.

At the end of July, the school board voted to reject the superintendent’s recommendation to start the year with a hybrid of in-person and distance learning. That means, a traditional five-day school week with butts in seats. The superintendent’s hybrid pandemic preparedness plan would remain on the shelf as a contingency in the event of a wider coronavirus outbreak.

A dozen or so teachers gathered outside before the meeting started. Teachers’ union leader Gara Cesefske was one of them.

“These teachers have gathered to show that they support the safety measures that our superintendent is going to propose tonight, and we’re really hanging tough together to try and promote social distancing,” Cesefske said.

And that they did — more than two dozen people spoke for a total of more than two hours. Many asked the board to restore safety measures outlined in the plan the board set aside at its last meeting.

Special education teacher and mom Gale Lindemann, right, sits with her son, August outside the Aug. 12 Ketchikan School Board meeting. The pair was there to advocate for pandemic safety measures as Ketchikan’s students return to classrooms five days a week. (Eric Stone/KRBD)

Several teachers pointed to one key safety measure in particular: extra space to spread students out. School administrators floated leasing off-site spaces, like churches, for extra classroom space. That, they say, would allow students to spread out and reduce their risk of spreading the coronavirus. Carol Stanton, a teacher entering her 25th year, put it this way to the board.

“Our classrooms are too small and classes too large to have physical distancing without additional school spaces,” Stanton said.

School board member Paul Robbins, Jr. said it was always the intention to revisit safety measures.

He said he supported leasing extra sites — as long as students were in front of certified teachers. Earlier versions of the pandemic plan would have split the class: half in front of a teacher, half in front of an aide. But the district scrapped that plan after fierce criticism from parents, said Superintendent Beth Lougee.

In the new concept, Lougee says entire grade levels — teachers and all — could move off-site. She says that would make sure students learned from a certified teacher every day.

Lougee said starting with students spread between schools and other buildings would make it easier to switch to smaller class sizes if the pandemic worsens in Ketchikan.

“Because we’re ready, and then we can adjust to what is now our contingency plan, and we’re not losing approximately four weeks of school,” she said.

She said the extra space would also mean less mixing between groups, which would limit the potential spread of the coronavirus.

Board member Leslie Becker asked when it would be appropriate to get back to the old normal.

“At what point are we going to quit requiring masks?” Becker asked Lougee. “We hear mixed push back from the community. I would be on the preferential — more freedom and no masking. I’m just asking the question, I’m not trying to make this a political issue.

The superintendent replied that it’s not yet clear when the district would stop requiring masks — she emphasized that even after the board’s vote, the district’s pandemic mitigation plan remains a work in progress.

Nearly four hours after the meeting began, after hearing from all sides, the body voted unanimously to adopt a list of requirements to keep kids safe as they head back for full-time instruction. It includes: mandatory masks for staff and students, temperature checks for everyone entering buildings and extra classroom space for students to spread out.

District officials split their recommendations between three categories, all of which the board unanimously approved. Download each set of recommendations here: Continuity of Learning, Capacities for Learning and Conditions for Learning.

The post Mandatory masks, extra space, fever checks in store as Ketchikan students return to classrooms full-time appeared first on KRBD.

How can Ketchikan’s students and teachers stay safe as kids go back to classrooms five days a week? Ketchikan’s school board will discuss district officials’ recommendations for school safety Wednesday following a vote last month to start the year at full capacity.

“Probably the one we want to start with is face masks and making them required for all staff and students,” Ketchikan superintendent Beth Lougee said Tuesday in a phone interview. “With, of course, the understanding based on case-by-case situations, we completely understand medical conditions.”

There would be some exceptions to that — medical conditions, as Lougee mentioned — but also, teachers would have the freedom to allow students to remove their masks if, say, they’re able to maintain distance from one another.

“We’re entrusting our teachers, you know, we’ll use common-sense best practices,” she said.

Lougee says she’ll also ask the board to revisit the concept of leasing community buildings like churches for extra classroom space. Those so-called “annexes” would spread students out and cut the chance of them spreading the coronavirus.

“I will talk tomorrow night about the annexes being an immediate need,” Lougee said.

Initially, Lougee proposed splitting up classes — certified teachers and teachers’ aides would work together to teach a class. Some parents pushed back on that, saying aides wouldn’t be as effective as teachers.

Lougee says the new concept is different: instead of splitting classes, entire grade levels could be moved off-site. But they’d stay with their teachers.

“So students will go with their teachers and be with them five days a week,” Lougee said. “It is not the same option that we first rolled out where students may only see their teacher two or three times a week. This is five days a week.”

Lougee says that would free up space back at the school building for others to spread out.

Lougee also recommends mandating temperature checks for all students entering schools, and she recommends that teachers set an example by frequently washing their hands.

Students and staff with COVID-19 symptoms, like, say, a cough, wouldn’t be allowed to come back to school until they’ve been symptom-free for 24 hours.

“There’s a lot of worry that just because somebody has a cough they would have to go home and quarantine and get tests — not at all,” she said.

Under the safety plan, she says students that show symptoms at school would be taken from classrooms to a private location, where their parents would be called.

And she says parents who don’t feel comfortable sending their kids to a full-capacity school — for any reason — can take advantage of the district’s homeschooling or distance learning options.

And teachers, too, Lougee says — she says teachers will be allowed to work from home. Lougee says those teachers could be reassigned to distance learning, or in some cases, even teach a classroom full of kids from home.

“We would work with them to be able to provide that education from home via distance learning back to the student,” she said.

Ketchikan’s school board will consider Lougee’s safety recommendations — and a number of other items — at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the White Cliff Building. Members of the public can offer comments at the start and end of the meeting.

The post Safety recommendations for full-capacity schools up for debate Wednesday appeared first on KRBD.

Some teachers and parents are waiting to hear more about Ketchikan’s new back-to-school plan. That’s following last week’s decision by the school board to overrule recommendations from the superintendent and mandate reopening classrooms five days a week at full capacity.

Gara Cesefske heads up Ketchikan’s local teachers union representing faculty being asked to go back to work five days a week in full classrooms.

“Well, primarily, our staff has voiced concerns with safety,” she said. “We kind of are at the point where we’re acknowledging that there’s no such thing as a safe return to school. So at this point, our language is that we’re looking for the safest option available.”

She says many details about the return to full capacity as the pandemic continues remain unclear. She says district administrators and Ketchikan’s school board have a lot of questions to answer — whether masks will be mandatory, how to maintain distance between students and staff, how staff and students will be screened, and more.

“If you look at our elementary level, where, you know, we have parents come visit classrooms, to what degree are we going to allow that? Is the district still going to rent out certain spaces like, the Kayhi auditorium? What’s it going to look like for parent teacher conferences?” she said.

District officials had proposed using places like the Ketchikan High School auditorium and local churches for extra classroom space. It’s not clear whether that’s an option following the school board’s decision.

Cesefske says she’s meeting with district administrators to discuss the union’s concerns this week.  Superintendent Beth Lougee said in an email over the weekend that she anticipates releasing more information Wednesday.

Parents, meanwhile, seem to be split on school reopenings. Jackie Yates is co-president of the Houghtaling Elementary School PTA, and she says she’s been hearing from parents on both sides of the issue.

“One person in particular is really concerned with the 100% startup and how that can follow the social distancing guidelines,” she said, “and another person is ecstatic that kids are going into the classrooms full time. And I think, how can we balance — we’ve been given 100% full start — how can we balance these two parents’ feelings?”

She encourages parents to reach out to their schools’ PTAs with their ideas on the best way to resume school. Parents whose children attend Houghtaling Elementary can contact Yates and co-president Petrina Calvin at htepta@gmail.com.

The post Teachers and parents await details of Ketchikan’s full school reopening plan appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan’s school board is pictured on Wednesday evening. The body rejected the district’s back-to-school plan and voted to fully reopen schools. (Eric Stone/KRBD)

Students in Ketchikan will go back to school five days a week this September.

That’s after Ketchikan’s school board rejected a back-to-school plan that would have kept schools half-full at the most.

The return to full-time, in-person schooling follows months of public pressure on the board to fully reopen school buildings.

“I’m shocked,” said parent Ali Ginter just after the board’s vote to reject Ketchikan’s “Smart Start” plan.

“I mean, I’ve gone to five meetings now. And we have not seen a huge change in the plan until tonight. And I know there’s parents that have consistently gone to all of these meetings, and I am impressed with our board for finally listening to us. And I appreciate them,” she said.

In Ketchikan’s most recent plan, schools would have operated at 50% capacity in order to maintain distance between students. District officials proposed spreading elementary-schoolers between traditional classrooms and so-called “annexes.”  The idea was to lease non-school spaces like churches as — essentially —  extra classroom space. And that would mean elementary-schoolers got four days of in-person instruction a week.

The board instead voted to use the proposed mitigation plan as a fallback if pandemic conditions worsen in Ketchikan.

But with the vote rejecting the plan, school board president Bridget Mattson said that extra space may no longer be an option.

“We won’t be able to set this plan up on the go. We won’t be able to all of a sudden set up annexes,” she said prior to the vote. “So we will go to a 50% scenario.”

A 50% scenario would mean a maximum of two days a week in school for kids at all grade levels. It’s not clear what would have to happen for the district to use its backup plan.

Those who voted to fully reopen schools, including board member Paul Robbins, Jr., cited low coronavirus activity in Ketchikan.

“I’ve been out at social outings where there has been almost no social distancing whatsoever on various occasions in various places, and we continue to not have these outbreaks,” Robbins said.

Other board members said they were worried that spreading kids between classrooms and annexes — and moving middle- and high-schoolers to remote learning two to three days a week — would mean a lower-quality education for Ketchikan’s students.

Robbins joined Mattson and board members Leslie Becker, Diane Gubatayao and Sonya Skan in the majority in the 5-2 vote. Board members Jordan Tabb and Tom Heutte voted against opening schools fully.

The head of Ketchikan’s teachers’ union, Gara Cesefske, meanwhile, says that even if the district maintains some coronavirus precautions — temperature checks, face masks and such — a return to full capacity means social distancing won’t be possible. And that means teachers are worried.

“The members are very concerned for their safety, returning to school, and social distancing was the primary thing that was making teachers feel safe returning into the classroom,” she said in a phone interview Tuesday night.

She says she’s surveying her members to determine how many are comfortable returning to full-capacity schools.

Districts in Anchorage and Fairbanks, both cities hit hard by the coronavirus, will start school entirely online.

Ketchikan’s first day of school is September 8.

The post Schools set to fully reopen five days a week as Ketchikan school board rejects pandemic plan appeared first on KRBD.

Shelby Reese and her children were among a dozen or so parents and children that turned out to protest the district’s back-to-school plans Monday. She was one of roughly a dozen parents that spoke out against the plan at a town hall meeting later that evening. (Eric Stone/KRBD)

Since Ketchikan’s school district unveiled the first draft of its back-to-school plan this summer, district officials have faced pushback from parents unsatisfied with distance learning. That continued this week as district officials announced new revisions to the plan. Parents also vented their frustrations over a recent restructuring that’s moved administrators  around the district.

Some community members are up in arms over what the district is calling its “Smart Start” plan for the fall. What had been simmering frustration boiled over at an explosive town hall meeting Monday night.

“I can’t even right now. Like, my blood is boiling. That was a joke,” said parent Lauren Munhoven shortly after the town hall meeting wrapped up.

It was a raucous night as roughly a  dozen parents berated district officials in Ketchikan High School’s auditorium. Just a few days prior, the district had come out with its latest revision of the Smart Start plan. Superintendent Beth Lougee explained the changes — more face-to-face time for elementary-schoolers, some grade-level shuffling — and answered some common questions.

Then came the question-and-answer period.

Some parents pushed for a return to normal schooling — five days a week in school buildings. That’s been a common refrain among a group of parents that’s spent hours testifying in front of the school board this summer.

Ketchikan High School administrator Cole Maxwell explained to parent Rick Dale that given federal recommendations that students stay six feet apart whenever possible, the district couldn’t safely bring classrooms back to full capacity.

“Based on the CDC recommendation of how much space needs to be between people, our classrooms can only hold so many,” Maxwell said.

“Well, okay, CDC, let’s talk about them briefly,” Dale said.

“Sir, I can’t,” replied Maxwell

“Let’s just say that most of the kids would like to go back to school full-time,” Dale said.

“And a hundred percent of the teachers would like to come back to school,” Maxwell said.

“Yeah, there you go. And so let’s just do it,” Dale said. “Why do we say, ‘No, we can’t do it?'”

Many parents said they were dissatisfied with distance learning this spring as the pandemic led local and state officials to rapidly close schools. Here’s Rick’s wife, Lisa Dale.

“My daughter was taking AP classes her junior year, and the fourth quarter, she learned nothing. Absolutely nothing. The [online meetings] were about barbecue ribs, and what was going to be on the menu,” she said.

She says she’s worried her daughter will fall behind this year as she applies to colleges.

“And I hope that you guys that are sitting up there make it better, because my daughter wants to go to college and at this point, it’s looking very, very bleak for her,” she said.

Lougee didn’t respond to Lisa Dale personally, but she has said remote schooling in the fall will look very different — and be much more rigorous — than it was this spring, when teachers didn’t assign new work or record grades.

Other parents asked for details administrators couldn’t readily provide — whether pupils will be penalized for skipping required online assignments, what specifically is in store for students with disabilities, how schools will support elementary-schoolers completing classwork at daycares.

“I’m asking you to work with your building principals who are building these plans,” Lougee said in response to one parent’s query.

That was a common response from Lougee — speak with your particular school’s principal. Principals know the parents, kids, the communities they serve. And they’re working out the details. Principals are under contract to return to work August 5, though Schoenbar Middle School principal Sheri Boehlert said many administrators have spent much of their summer thinking about how to adapt programs for the pandemic.

“We’re going to get it figured out,” Boehlert said. “It’s going to look different, but we’re gonna have a really great program for our kids.”

But referring questions to local principals didn’t satisfy some speakers, like Michelle Hall, who has a child at Fawn Mountain Elementary School.

“As a Fawn Mountain parent, you say our principals know our families, and we need to reach out to our principals,” Hall said. “Who does Fawn Mountain reach out to when we have a new principal who doesn’t know our families?”

She’s referring to a shakeup of principals, vice principals and other administrators at more than half of the district’s seven schools.

The district’s athletic director was moved to a vice principal’s position at the middle school and replaced by another administrator. Fawn Mountain’s principal was moved to the high school and replaced by a vice principal from another elementary school.

Hall wasn’t the only one who mentioned the personnel shuffle — here’s parent Tiffany Cook.

“I would like for you to justify and explain to us the administration changes that were made on Friday,” Cook said.

School board president Bridget Mattson interjected as Cook asked, saying “no.” School board members typically don’t comment on personnel issues.

We rejoin Tiffany Cook asking about administrators being moved around the district:

“So I would like some explanation of how and why this was done, and why it was done on a Friday night,” Cook asked administrators.

“Thank you, Tiffany,” Mattson replied.

“I’m very concerned about your combative nature tonight,” Cook said. “There’s a lot of us who are very concerned about that.”

“I totally appreciate —” Mattson said as other parents heckled administrators onstage. “I’m telling you that we’re going to talk about Smart Start tonight. That’s what we’re here to talk about, is the Smart Start.”

“Well, you told us that this was our chance to ask questions and get them answered,” Cook said, “because you made it very clear you can’t do that in the [school] board meeting. And I think that as part of Smart Start we were hoping for consistency and stability for our kids. And that’s not provided by this.”

That point about consistency among administrators? Ketchikan’s teachers’ union agrees.

“It’s kind of like changing the oil in your boat,” said Gara Cesefske, president of the Ketchikan Education Association

She says a pandemic that’s already turning life upside down — especially for teachers — is the wrong time to change school leadership.

“It’s just not the time. You don’t wait to change the oil in your boat when you’re in the middle of Clarence Strait during a gale and you have six-foot waves crashing over your bow,” Cesefske said.

She says that as word spread among teachers late Friday night that some school administrators were being reassigned to other schools, her phone started ringing off the hook. Cesefske says all but a few of the teachers who called her opposed the changes.

“These teachers, who previously relied on their administrators and knew that they would be asking their administrators and working with their administrators to build these plans, are in a state of upheaval. And they don’t know their point person and the relationships haven’t already been established,” she said.

Neither Lougee nor school board president Mattson commented on the personnel moves during the town hall meeting.

No members of the public offered support for the district’s back-to-school plan. But as the Q&A session drew to a close, Sheryl Yeisley offered a call to action.

“For those of you who came and spoke tonight, please run for the school board. There’s open seats and we need change. We need parents. We need tribal members. We need people that are going to care about our kids and our community because I’m going to say it: This is unacceptable.”

The filing period for this fall’s municipal elections opens August 3.

District officials may get another earful this week as Ketchikan’s school board takes up the Smart Start plan in a special meeting  at 6 p.m. Wednesday. Public comment will be heard at the beginning and end of the meeting.

The post Parents vent frustration with Ketchikan’s back-to-school plan, question administrator shakeup in dramatic town hall appeared first on KRBD.

This slide from a presentation sent to Ketchikan school district parents Friday outlines the district’s new plan for elementary-schoolers. Children would attend “annexes” when they’re not scheduled to be in classrooms. It’s not clear yet where those might be located. (Screenshot by Eric Stone/KRBD)

Ketchikan’s school children may have somewhere to go four days a week once classes resume in the fall. The school district has been working for weeks on a reopening plan that would continue educating students while keeping everyone safe.

Ketchikan’s revised “Smart Start” plan shuffles grade levels and teachers between school buildings — sixth-graders who would ordinarily attend elementary schools would instead be enrolled in Schoenbar Middle School. Eighth-graders would move to their own separate wing of Ketchikan High School, though they’ll stay enrolled at the middle school.

Sixth- and eighth-grade teachers would relocate alongside their students, the district told parents. Administrators say it’s part of an effort to make sure as many kids can physically attend school as possible — while still adhering to state and federal health guidelines that recommend spacing kids at least six feet from one another.

The new plan would have Ketchikan’s kids in front of educators two to four days a week, depending on grade level.

Elementary-schoolers would have the most face-to-face time with teachers and aides — four days a week total.

“And when we talk about on-site, that means school building, or the annexes,” said Superintendent Beth Lougee at a virtual town hall meeting Monday.

They would spend two days a week in their traditional classrooms and two days a week in what the district is now calling “annexes.”

It’s not clear where those annexes might be physically located. Previously, the district planned to staff local church buildings with teachers’ aides for what it then called “extended learning opportunities.”

The district says elementary-schoolers would be required to “participate” in the annex programs, though not necessarily in person.

“Yes, they are expected and expected to be there, but we will work with you if there are certain needs,” Lougee said.

Sixth- and seventh-graders would spend three days a week in classrooms at Schoenbar. They would spend one day a week working from home or at an annex site.

High-schoolers, including eighth-graders, would have two days a week in physical classrooms and another two working remotely. Like middle-schoolers, they’d have the option to spend their two remote days at an annex, but they wouldn’t be required to physically attend.

Eighth-graders would be kept separate from high-schoolers.

“The plan right now is there should be no interactions, as this will be a secured location within the Kayhi building monitored by eighth grade teachers and administration,” Lougee said.

Middle-schoolers at Revilla, the district’s alternative school, would spend four days a week in classrooms. High-schoolers at Revilla would work on a half-day schedule four days a week.

All students would work from home on Fridays as teachers and staff receive ongoing training.

The district’s two charter schools, Ketchikan Charter School and Tongass School of Arts and Sciences, are not affected by the grade-shuffling. Charter schools have some independence from district administrators and are developing their own back-to-school plans.

Students with special needs would follow an entirely different schedule, which could involve as much as the usual five days a week in school buildings. That’ll be determined between special education teachers and parents.

Masks also play a role in the district’s pandemic mitigation plan: they’ll be required for all students anytime they’re not sitting at their desks, six feet away from classmates. And if there’s an uptick in cases in the Ketchikan area, they could be required at all times.

And if the pandemic really ramps up in Ketchikan, school buildings could close and the district could move to fully remote learning. Ketchikan’s emergency operations center is developing a data-based tool to help school leaders decide when school closures might be necessary.

“We will start school based on a level that is now tied directly to the community-based level,” Lougee said.

Some parents have pushed back vigorously against the district’s back-to-school plan, offering hours of testimony during recent school board meetings. That doesn’t appear likely to change with the recent revisions — a protest was planned Monday afternoon at a busy Ketchikan intersection.

The district is holding town hall meetings Monday about the plan, including online meetings at noon and 3 p.m. and an in-person session at 6 p.m. in the Ketchikan High School auditorium. If necessary, a fourth session will be held in the auditorium at 7:30 p.m.

One very important caveat: the plan has not been approved by Ketchikan’s school board. That body has the final say in how school resumes in the fall. It’s scheduled to take up the plan in a special meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

This story has been updated.

The post Ketchikan’s revised back-to-school plan increases face-to-face time, shuffles grade levels appeared first on KRBD.