Many people are wondering what the next school year will look like. We spoke with Branden Johnson, Executive Director of Secondary Schools, to find out the current plan.

“As of this moment we are optimistic that we will be able to start school up with all students coming back face to face. All students having the option to not wear a mask and all faculty and staff not having to wear a mask.” 

The plan is to bring back face to face learning, but what about online learning options?

“The legislature has mandated that they are not going to be funding my school remote for next year, so we know that next year the only options are families will have for learning environments are gonna be their traditional onsite school setting or our EIA academy which is our virtual school that students can enroll in so those are the two options that USD259 families will have for next year.”

While this year was full of negatives, are there any positives that we can learn from for next year?

“I think that the efficiency in which we are having this conversation right now through teams is they process them which we need to keep as a district. If they need to collaborate in light groups or like ideas similar topics work like this, why would we not use the one to one devices, teams, those kinds of things to make that work more efficient and effective.”

Will we be able to have a remote day for bad weather?

“It’s not something that we’re gonna say 100 percent every time there’s a snow day. It will be a remote learning day or sometimes in any kind of bad weather that might keep us out of ice etc. But it’s definitely something we wanna keep in our back pocket as an option so that if we get close to number of days allowed to miss or we just think that it would be you know the time of year we really need kids involved in the learning environment and they need to stay connected with their teacher during that day we can have a remote day.”

Not everything will likely go according to plan but everyone is hoping and trying their best to have a normal school year again for both students and staff.