School officials at the Warsaw School Board meeting Tuesday discussed plans for e-learning days to make up for school cancellations due to weather.
“We’ve already had four snow days this year,” said Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert after the meeting.
Indiana law requires that a school have 180 days in its school year.
The plan is for the e-learning assignments to be accessed online on a Saturday. The first day will be a pilot program, according to Chief Technology Officer Brad Hagg.
Hoffert said the plan is to use two Saturdays of e-learning later this year. The other two days will be made up by tacking them on to end of the year.
Board member Jeremy Mullins raised a concern about students who may not have access to high-speed internet in their homes.
Hagg said based on surveys, approximately 770 students don’t have internet. He said the plan is to make use of the computer labs and libraries to make sure that everyone has access.
Hagg added that the divide of those who don’t have internet is related to geographic location, which allows to them to strategically choose which computer labs to use.
“There’s lots of details to be ironed out,” Hagg said.
The board is expected to vote on the e-learning plan at next week’s meeting. Hoffert said more information will be available at that point. The dates of the e-learning days will be decided then.
In other scheduling matters, Dani Barkey, chief accountability officer, said she planned to move the starting time for all schools to a later start time.
The time will be used for teacher development, known as professional learning communities. She said the high school already does this, but going districtwide will allow parents to better plan when PLC time will be used.
Chief Academic Officer David Robertson announced a plan to allow sixth–graders to opt-in to pre-algebra. He said this will allow students who show skill in math to advance through higher math levels through high school.
The students will be selected based on ISTEP scores. They will be invited to the class.
If a family decides to place a student in the class, the student will not be allowed to drop out.
“We want it to be a family decision,” Robertson said.
Robertson said there are still some details to work out but believes they have enough students for a sixth-grade pre-algebra class.
