Virtual days or weekends: The school leaders of the Baton Rouge region chose differently during a snowstorm – the lawyer

Children and teenagers at Baton Rouge spent on January 21 outdoors, making snow angels, building snowmen and cheering each other with snowballs. The school buildings, where they would usually spend the day in the classrooms, were closed and covered with snow.

However, many of these schools were still in operation: they conducted a virtual day of class work. This is according to their public messages at that time and their subsequent answers to Advocate Reporter.

Last Month’s Brutal Snowstorm, Which Struct the Day after the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, Paralyzed The Entire Area for the Rest of Week, Yet Public Schools Varied in How They Classified The Four Post-Holiday Days Wen Campuses Were Clear of Students and teachers.

Some schools refer to them as snowy weekends, while others consider them to be online training days. The last group of schools was largely left on their own devices to decide whether the students were really attending school distance these days. And the Louisiana Ministry of Education does not inspect the quantity and quality of virtual instructions offered during the four -day interruption of snow.

Livingston’s parish chief Jodie First considers virtual days as a last resort. He said it was less than ideal for teachers and students, so the area did not have online hours during the storm.

“The virtual instruction is a struggle,” Paris said, noting the low quality internet connectivity in the largest parts of this great parish.

Of the 15 state school districts in the Big Baton Rouge region, eight report this snowy Tuesday as a day of virtual instruction in the classroom. The enrollment for these eight areas is about 42,000 students.

Although all school campuses in the area were closed on January 21-24 because of the historic snowstorm, six areas with about 16,000 students operated virtual classes all the time. Six more areas training about 100,000 children said they did not hold online hours, including East Baton Rouge and Livingston, the parish, the largest in the area. Three more areas had a mixture of virtual days and weekends until the campuses were turned off.

School leaders who have stated that they have had virtual instructions have maintained that the remote school work they received students received is legal equivalent to approximately 24 hours of personal education that these students would receive if the snow, ice and bitter cold are not They closed the schools.

It is unclear how many actual instructions in the classroom have occurred virtually this cold week. But in interviews with local school executives it is clear that few if some local students get involved everywhere near 24 hours of work.

Two types of virtual instructions

Visiting virtual days is taken on the basis of whether the students have completed the work, appointed to them either in print work packages or through programs such as Google Classroom.

Online live hours are much easier to document, but such classes were relatively rare during the winter week based on interviews. For example, Ascension Parish reported its virtual instruction this week was not live online.

Keisha Netterville is the head of the parish schools in Eastern Feliciana, where students were taught practically during the snowstorm when campuses were closed. She said that virtual days are an attempt to hold students on the way during the long period away from the classroom.

“Our students need continuous enhancement throughout the year, so we used the four days of distance learning to ensure that our students have received purposeful activities and materials to increase skills and standards,” Izhel said.

The parishes of Ascension and West Feliciana have split the time by deciding to make Tuesday and Wednesday virtual school days. For Thursday and Friday this week, they decided to classify those days when they had no hours.

Holis Milton, the chief of the parisy of West Feliciana, said teachers began to choose lessons to send home on Wednesday, January 15, six days before the worst snowfall at Baton Rugs from 1895, the high school teachers prepared tasks in the high school Google classroom, while regional print staff printed work packages for elementary and medium -sized students.

Milton said the administrators, after consulting teachers, decided to send lessons to send home based on where the children in these classes are in the state -approved curriculum.

Milton, however, was hesitant to go virtual for more than two days during snowy weekends.

“If you try to send home more than you start to lose the efficiency of how good these lessons can be,” he said.

While Tuesday and Wednesday were considered virtual days of school in Western Feliciana, tasks can be completed at any time during the nine -day period from January 18 to January 26, including two weekends.

Milton said he had encouraged children, including his 17-year-old daughter, to perform his tasks Early.

“On Tuesday, you’ll probably want to play in the snow,” recalls Milton, who told her.

Folders from remote teaching

The six regions of the public school districts, which did not conduct in person or virtual instructions during the week of rare snowstorm, did so partly because of fears about the effectiveness of the virtual instruction. These concerns arose during the coronavirus pandemic, when the overall results of the Louisiana test assessment were significantly less for students who spent days in remote learning when the schools were closed.

Lamont Cole, head of parish schools in East Baton Rouge, said he prefers live hours online if there was a virtual day, unlike working at home.

Cole said he may have tried a virtual day or two, but believes that time would force schools to stay closed only a day or two, not four consecutive days, as it happened. Therefore, schools in Eastern Baton Rouge did not send students home with their Chromebook. For the next layer of extreme time, he is considering sending laptops home with students so that if schools remain closed for a long period, they can successfully conduct virtual instructions.

Days of Snow Makeup for certain schools

Louisiana requires students to be at school for at least 63 720 minutes a year – the equivalent of 177 days.

During the snowy week, when the campuses were dark, the parishes in East Baton and Livingston burned through additional “emergencies” they had left in the school calendars for bad weather and emergencies. In the end, they had to change their calendars to add half or full days to school. St. James’s parish schools, which remained closed throughout the week, decided to extend the school day by four to 11 minutes the rest of the school year.

The seven regions of the Baton Rouge region should compensate for the time because of the interruption of snow.

The areas that relied most on virtual days were able to avoid such changes in the calendar.

“We do not check that the child is sitting in class”

The state provisions adopted in 2022 allow schools to treat virtual days, the same as personal school days, as long as they have six hours of school time. In order to qualify, school districts must adopt a continuous training plan that details how they provide remote instructions when personal hours are interrupted.

Jenna Chiason, Deputy Chief of Teaching and Training of the Ministry of Education in Louisiana, said the state encourages areas to use as much personal instructions as possible, but also admits that different areas around the state have different problems and need local problems Flexibility.

“We encourage school systems to look at their individual context and to make the decisions that are best for them and their students. They are much better positioned to do this than we are in Baton Rouge, “Chiason said.

However, the state has not yet considered the “acceptable evidence” for remote instructions that the 2022 regulations say that schools should collect on virtual days.

Ashley Townsend, Deputy Chief of Louisiana’s Ministry of Education Policy, said the state is not usually second to attending a classroom teacher.

“If a teacher marks a child present at school that day, we do not check that the child is sitting in class and is marked by the teacher,” Townsend said.