The William S. Hart Union High School District governing board discussed Wednesday how the schedule will look for students returning for online classes in the fall.
Earlier in the meeting, the governing board had voted unanimously to hold off on returning to school for the first five weeks of the semester, instead having students and teachers hold class via online platforming.
After that five-week period, the district plans to revisit the idea of its blended model, which would divide students at a school in separate groups and have them do alternating days of on-campus learning and online learning.
For the first five weeks, however, junior highs and high schools will operate on similar, yet slightly different schedules.
Following the vote to move forward with the online model, Kathy Hunter, the district’s assistant superintendent of educational services, said the district had learned through the spring emergency virtual platforming that there needed to be a unilateral districtwide platform for instructional delivery.
Additionally, the district needed to have a consistency in educational rigor, require live interaction in every class period, and ensure that there’s accountability between students and teachers in terms of attendance and assignments.
Teachers for the start of the coming school year will teach from the classroom and have full access to their curriculum and materials, Hunter said, and this will require professional development for all teachers and staff provided by the district.
Junior high students will, for the five-week period, complete periods 1-3 on Monday and periods 4-6 on Tuesday. On Wednesdays, they will have all six periods, and Thursday and Friday would repeat the first two days of the school week.
Lunch will take place at 12:10 p.m., but by 1:10 p.m. students will be working until 3 p.m. on the assignments they’ve been given by their teachers to work on independently. This is true for Monday through Friday, but on Wednesdays, teachers will be having teacher meetings during this afternoon slot.
High school would be a similar setup to the junior high schoolers, except that there would be periods 1-8, with 8 representing sports, extracurriculars and classes that occur in the afternoon periods usually. These activities, Hunter said, will occur based on the health order at that time.
Each day for the junior high students is a total of 350 minutes, and each day for the high school students ranges from 350 to 400 minutes per day.
Hunter once again reviewed the blended models, with the cohort A and cohort B, should the district decide to move forward with the blended model once the five-week period is over and the governing board has determined it is safe to return to campus.
