Here‘s how Blaine schools started remote learning Wednesday. More schools follow next week
Families and staff adjusted to remote learning and technology issues on the first day of school in the Blaine School District Wednesday, Aug. 26.
The Blaine School District is the first in Whatcom County to start its school year and more are expected to follow in the next couple of weeks. All Whatcom County school districts have planned to start the school year with remote learning in accordance with an Aug. 4 recommendation from the Whatcom County Health Department. The move to remote learning aims to protect communities from the spread of COVID-19 but may challenge some families who must now oversee their children’s schooling and contend with technology issues.
Superintendent Christopher Granger told The Bellingham Herald he thinks the first day went better in some ways than the transition to remote learning in the spring because staff and families had more time to plan. However, he added the district is still working to address technology issues on a case by case basis with families.
“As we go through this, things are going to go well and some things are not going to go well, and we’ll just adjust to better meet the needs of our families,” Granger said. “You know, we’re not expecting perfection. We’re expecting consistency, communication and effort.”
The district had previously approved a hybrid learning plan combining remote learning and in-person learning, however, those plans were put on hold after the health department recommendation. Granger said this gave families some lead time to prepare for some degree of remote learning.
“They know what to expect,” Granger said. “They know that attendance is daily. They know they need to interact with their teacher. If you remember the spring, it was like turning a cruise ship around over a weekend.”
Over the past week, schools had students check out Chromebooks and WiFi hot spots based on their responses to a planning survey, according to an Aug. 21 message from Granger. The district is actively working to secure more hot spots for families who did not initially respond to the survey or have since learned they need internet connectivity help, Granger said.
“We know that there’s no 100% solution,” Granger said. “There are going to be people that are outside of the coverage area and we’re going to need to work with those families to find the best way to deliver quality education to those students.”
Granger said most people experienced minor issues such as remembering how to log in to their online classes and learning how to navigate a new remote learning environment. Unlike the spring, when students had the chance to meet their classmates and teachers in person, students must now meet everyone virtually, Granger said.
“I just think people have a little bit more apprehension of starting a year with new teachers and new classmates,” Granger said. “They maybe don’t know everybody and they don’t know the teacher. We acknowledge that and we’re encouraging our teachers to use this time to really reach out individually to families and build some good relationships with them.”
Schools in the Blaine district plan to follow a six-hour schedule with a mix of live and prerecorded lessons and independent activities. Elementary schools intend to hold live or prerecorded instruction for the first four hours and self-directed learning for the last two hours, according to planning documents. Meanwhile, the middle school intends to hold four class periods per day and the high school plan six, the documents read.
“We know that our younger learners can’t sit online and look at a computer all day,” Granger said. “So we made the conscious and I think good decision to mix that content to allow parents to do some of it at night. Some of it they can watch with their students and they can watch it repeatedly if they need to.”
Bellingham Public Schools, Lynden School District, Nooksack School District and Mount Baker District plan to start the school year on Tuesday, Sept. 8. Meanwhile, the Ferndale School District and the Meridian School District plan to start on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
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