More in-person classes studied in Fort Smith

Face-to-face instruction shift offers benefits, board told

FORT SMITH — The Fort Smith School District is considering phasing out one of the learning models that it implemented in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic.

Martin Mahan, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for the school district, provided the Fort Smith School Board an update on its blended learning model, as well as its virtual learning option, during a meeting on Monday.

Mahan said the blended model, which the school district website states combines both traditional onsite instruction and digital coursework, is specifically for students in grades 10-12 at Northside and Southside high schools. It is a program in which students can pick the classes they come to each day, or not at all, and do their coursework on a learning management system called Schoology.

The school district, Mahan said, is considering looking at returning students from blended to face-to-face instruction at both high schools, although this presents certain challenges. For example, there are still going to be students and parents who are fearful of returning to school because of covid-19. The district will have to manage the expectations of students and families with such a transition, as well as communicate the importance of onsite learning, Mahan said.

“We’re seeing that it’s just not effective for students, the blended model, and making sure we communicate that, and some of that will start taking place with the parent/teacher conferences this week, and to have those conversations with parents that this is not the right plan, this is not working for your student,” Mahan said.

The district will also have to communicate a sense of urgency for it to intervene and remediate student performance during what is left of the first semester, according to Mahan.

However, Mahan said this return to face-to-face instruction also presents a number of opportunities. Among these are increased engagement in learning, the ability to appropriately track attendance and truancy, which is difficult to do in the blended model, greater levels of participation in extracurricular events and more opportunities for intervention for students.

“I would say … we’ve looked at the data as far as the covid spread, and we had a lot of real good reasons to look at blended, whether it be the construction, the congestion, safety, transitions, all those really good reasons,” Mahan said.

“But our data suggests that we’ll be OK bringing students back, and also the fact that both principals came up with a very creative, innovative idea to do A/B Block [scheduling], so we move transitions from seven classes a day to just four, and so that will continue to help with the exposure to covid, so that won’t go away, and that eighth block period will give us the time to do the credit recovery.”

In response to a question from School Board member Talicia Richardson, Mahan said the school district has been traditionally providing a seven-period day at the high schools. A/B Block scheduling would essentially involve four longer periods per day, with students going through their first, third, fifth, and seventh periods one day and their second, fourth, sixth and eighth periods the next.

“The eighth period was always built as a period to get intervention, to get assistance, to get help,” Mahan said. “We would transition that eighth period to get caught up on what they’ve fallen behind in the blended model.”

Mahan detailed a possible plan of action to facilitate the transition from blended to faceto-face learning. This included possibly phasing out the blended model while still maintaining the virtual option and returning to previous attendance policies for onsite learning. It also entails the district continuing to provide assignments in Schoology for students unable to attend school, using multiple methods of communication regarding the return to onsite instruction and creating individual learning plans to intervene and remediate first quarter grades for students who need it.

“I think when we were back in the summer that this blended model idea was a creative attempt to provide flexibility to students in our high schools who weren’t necessarily ready or willing to make the 100% jump to virtual, and I’m glad we’ve tried it,” School Board member Dalton Person said.

“But after nine weeks, I’m seriously doubting the efficacy of the blended model based on everything I’ve heard, and that’s OK, but I don’t think it’s working at this juncture, particularly with the idea of our principals for this A/B Block scheduling while maintaining the virtual option to all the students.”

Person said he believed that eliminating the blended learning model would be the best course of action.

Mahan also talked about certain challenges concerning the school district’s virtual option and steps taken to resolve these issues. A focus group involving parents, students, teachers and administrators will be convened Nov. 3, with this group’s input to help guide the virtual option for the spring semester. Follow-up sessions will take place in December.