Students continue education online

Painesville Schools using Clever; Riverside using Google Classroom

Painesville City and Riverside school districts using online tools to keep students educated.

Due to ongoing concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus, schools throughout Northeast Ohio initially extended the students’ spring break vacations as a wait-and-see measure.

Throughout this, local school districts, including Riverside and Painesville City, have urged their students to remain academically engaged by accessing educational resources through online means.

With evolving updates given by the Ohio Board of Health and mandates by Gov. Mike DeWine, in-school attendance has been suspended until at least April 6. But not wanting area schoolchildren to lose out on completing the work necessary to advance to the next grade, many area schools are relying on those same online models to assist students in completing their curriculum.

Painesville City Schools and its teaching staff will begin conducting school lessons through the online academic portal, Clever. From there, teachers create resources which students then access from home and complete.

The Painesville district acknowledged that not every student in the district may have access to the Internet and will be providing printed packets every Monday, beginning March 23 from 9 a.m. until noon at the school board office, 58 Jefferson Ave.

Painesville City Schools has stated that as the self-isolation mandates continue to remain fluid there is a possibility this manner of education will continue through the rest of the 201920 school year.

Riverside Schools is following a similar trend, but utilizing Google Classroom instead. All students K-12 will have online assignments to complete in order to continue their school year. Primary grades will also receive assignment packets to be completed as well.

“Our teachers were able to plan to move instruction forward exactly from where we were so there were no ‘plug-in’ assignments just to get us through,” explained Riverside Director of Curriculum and Instruction Melissa Mlakar. “We took last week to plan. This week is our spring break and we start next Monday. We expect the kids to start back up and that will allow us to move forward from where we are.”

“There’s probably going to be some stumbling blocks. That’s what’s going to make Monday interesting,” she joked

Mlaker expects an adjustment period for students but trusts their ability to adapt. “It will be most difficult for K-2 because they don’t do much online stuff, but almost every teacher uses the Google platform all the time so that will be a fairly easy transition.

“Grades 3-12, all of our students were able to take home a device if needed and we did learning binders for K-2,” she added.

Mlakar said the teachers are trying a lot of new things. For example, an eighth-grade teacher constructed a makeshift easel from leftover molding in his garage.

“He built this whole thing so he can write out equations and what the learning objectives are so when he does his video he can show the kids that,” she said.

During the uncertainty everyone is facing, Mlakar urges parents to keep perspective.

“There are so many other things going on in people’s lives right now,” she said. “Nobody should be fighting with their kids. This should not be another stressor for them. Do the best that you can. If it’s too much, if you still have to go to work, it will be fine. I would rather have students come back and be a little behind on their course work as long as their mental health is intact.”

Despite the setbacks, Mlakar remains optimistic for the future.

“I’m so proud of our teaching staff and their ability to embrace this,” she said. “We sometimes as educators are very stuck in what we do. This is forcing us to get out of our comfort zone. When we get through the other side of this, and we will, there’s going to be some good things that come out of it.”