Schools 'practice' for remote learning

Arcadia Local Schools has managed to stick to its full-time, in-person schedule this year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. But on Friday, the district went remote on a scheduled "planned virtual learning day." It's the only one scheduled for this academic year. Meanwhile, the Van Buren school district has eight "alternative learning" days scheduled throughout this academic year. Both districts are scheduling days when the entire school district swings remote in an effort to keep everyone ready to make the switch, if necessary. Van Buren Superintendent Brian Blum said the district's school board voted early in 2021 to schedule the alternative learning days. The district has also maintained a full-time, in-person schedule so far this school year. Blum said no other school days, aside from those previously scheduled, have been remote this academic year. On Wednesday, Arcadia schools reported six students with active cases of COVID-19, and five staff members. Van Buren schools reported a single case among staff members, and 14 active student cases. Arcadia Superintendent Dave Golden said "virtual learning days" were initially meant as a way to continue instruction on bad weather days. Public school districts began creating alternatives to in-person learning nearly 10 years ago, when Ohio phased out the use of calamity days. In the past, state law required a school district to schedule makeup days if it missed more than five days because of snow or other weather "calamities." Schools are now required to be open a minimum of 1,001 hours for middle and high school levels, and 910 hours for elementary schools. Most school districts schedule well beyond the state minimum, reducing any need to make up hours to meet the minimum. The state also began to allow alternatives for making up hours, like remote days, work sent home in "blizzard bags," weekends, or longer school days. However, when Ohio ordered all K-12 public schools to shut down in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, many struggled with making the switch. The scheduled remote days aren't makeup days, but "practice" remote days for both school districts. On Arcadia's virtual learning day, all students were required to join their classes through Google Meets. Older students received their schedules via email, and younger students received their schedules from their teachers. "Last spring, both the administration and the teachers thought it would be a good thing to put in our calendar so we could be effective when we needed to use it," Golden said. Grant: 419-427-8412