Jessieville weathers pandemic online

Like the county’s other public schools, Jessieville School District is weathering the coronavirus pandemic using a combination of Alternative Methods of Instruction packets and online classes, according to Superintendent Melissa Speers.

“Teachers are communicating with the students the best way they can,” Speers said in a recent interview, noting some students don’t have internet access.

The district is providing Wi-Fi access outside two of the school buildings, she said, so that students can access the internet from parking lots while seated inside their vehicles. The district also has a mobile hot spot at Mount Tabor Baptist Church and is working to provide access at another church. There will be additional mobile hot spots available in a few weeks.

“They can pull up, park in the parking lot, and get free Wi-Fi access at any time of the day or

night,” she said.

“In our most outermost areas, there is no cable internet. There’s not anything we can do in those areas,” Speers said.

The AMI packets were approved by the Arkansas Department of Education at the beginning of the fall semester. Teachers are submitting their lesson plans to their schools’ principals, she said.

The district is following the guidelines set by the Department of Education in regard to seniors who are on track to graduate, Speers said.

“Part of their guidance was if seniors were on track to graduate in the third nine weeks, which means they have all their credits, they have passing grades at the end of the third nine weeks, then we could count them as ready to graduate,” she said.

“They also said that if there are any local requirements in our local district, we can still hold them to those that they have to complete those for graduation,” Speers said.

The Jessieville school buildings are closed to the public, but the teachers are allowed to be in the buildings if they need to be, she said, noting the district is enforcing social distancing.

“We are very much preaching social distancing. We are practicing social distancing. We are sanitizing. We are taking every precaution based on the Centers for Disease Control (and Prevention) guidelines and our Arkansas Department of Health guidelines,” Speers said.

The district brought back teachers last Monday, following spring break, so they could prepare for a longer time away, since it was originally believed the school would only be closed through the week before spring break. School nurses screened the teachers as they came in, she said.

“They were taking temperatures, and they were asking the list of questions that had been provided to us by the Department of Education and screening questions,” Speers said.

“I had requested of our staff if they had traveled over spring break outside the state or had anybody come into their home from outside the state not to come on campus,” she said.

Speers said some of the teachers are using teleconferencing services including Zoom and Google Hangouts Meet for their online classes.

During the regular school year, Speers would meet with school officials weekly, but since the crisis has started, she sometimes meets with the officials daily or every other day depending on the need, she said.

Speers said the biggest struggle the district has faced is not having the students in class where the teacher can be there with them, see their faces, gauge their understanding and answer their questions.

“The struggles have been not being able to have that instruction from the teacher. We have had several teachers who have videoed their lessons. That’s one-way communication. It’s not two-way communication,” she said.

The first week the district was out, the custodians went room to room and did a deep clean and sanitized all the buildings. Since the teachers have come back, the district will have the custodians return next week to do another deep clean and sanitize the buildings. The buses are also fogged two days a week since the bus drivers deliver lunches to the students during the weekdays, Speers said.