Lincoln Public Schools officials are compiling two weeks of review materials for students to work independently from home were schools to close in response to the global coronavirus outbreak.
That’s the first step in plans the district is putting in place to prepare for the possibility of schools closing as the virus continues to spread in the state. No cases have been identified in Lincoln.Â
Bob Rauner, a member of the Lincoln Board of Education and president of Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln, said in a YouTube video he posted about the likely impact of the virus in Lincoln that the motivation for closing schools is to slow the progression of the virus in the community.
Healthy children and young adults aren't at risk, he said, but if too many people get sick too quickly, it’s likely to overwhelm health care facilities. But if a community can slow the growth, it can better prepare and better handle the serious cases, he said in his video, which had gotten 2,400 views as of Tuesday afternoon.
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Schools in Fremont, Plattsmouth and the Logan View district canceled classes this week as a precaution. LPS students are on spring break this week, and the district is planning for everyone to return to classes Monday.
If LPS had to close it would download material onto Chromebooks given to each student from sixth to 12th grade. Once downloaded, students wouldn’t need Wi-Fi access at home to get it, said Chief Technology Officer Kirk Langer.
He estimated that about 25% of students lack reliable Wi-Fi access. It’s a hard number to pin down, he said, because some families with phone data plans say they have access, though data plans don’t work with the Chromebooks, or families have more limited or intermittent access.
Students from second through fifth grades use Chromebooks at school but don’t take them home, and district officials are trying to work out the logistics of checking those Chromebooks out to the more than 12,000 students in those grades, if schools closed.
It’s unclear exactly how work for students in preschool through first grade would get home since they don’t have devices, but it’s possible the district could print material, Langer said.
Takako Olson, LPS director of curriculum and instruction, said there are separate packets of review materials for each grade at the elementary level and for different classes at the secondary level.
They focus on topics that are subject to comprehensive end-of-the-year tests or state tests, which typically are administered in March and April. LPS officials are drawing from the reviews included in many subjects' final units, she said.
District officials are still exploring ways to teach remotely if schools were to close for a longer period, Langer said, and have yet to find a sure-fire way to bridge the digital divide, a task that would involve internet providers in the community.
“I don’t have that silver bullet, so to speak,†Langer said.Â
For the prospect of a long-term closing, instruction could be delivered online through a combination of interactive lessons and prepackaged lessons and videotaped lectures available online that aren’t interactive, Langer said.
Administrators and faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are making similar plans. Richard Moberly, the interim executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, asked faculty this week to start thinking about how in-class presentations can become digital assignments and how testing might work remotely.
Spring break for UNL students begins March 23, a week when students would traditionally scatter to their homes and tourist destinations before returning to finish the semester.
One of the challenges with interactive classes is getting all students to tune in at the same time, Langer said.
“There’s no bell schedule at home,†he said. “It’s very difficult to get them in the right classroom at any given moment.â€
Online learning isn’t new, Langer said, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to make it work in such a situation.
“The concept isn’t new and the capacity isn’t new, but it’s packaging it up in a way (that will work),†he said. “Necessity is the mother of invention. Sometimes … what you do here are things that could be leveraged in an ongoing fashion.â€