The Forest Grove High School. Photo: Brenda Schaffer
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FOREST GROVE – Two weeks after schools closed in Oregon by order of Governor Kate Brown, it’s looking more and more like the closure — extended by another order to April 28 — will linger until summer.
“Today we know there is a very real potential that our students, like in many other states, may not return to school this academic year,” said Colt Gill, Director of the Oregon Department of Education and Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction in a late-night missive to superintendents and principals on Monday, March 30.
Included in the letter were details of the state’s push to keep Oregon students engaged and moving forward in the academic year, but at a distance.
“This calls for a shift from providing supplementary education to a formidable effort to provide Distance Learning for All,” said Gill.
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Districts must have their plans for distance learning in place by Monday, April 13.
It’s a massive challenge for Oregon’s nearly 200 school districts.
But in the Forest Grove School District, the district had already planned to forge ahead, seeking to bring some certainty for education while awaiting state guidance.
“Forest Grove School District will provide supplemental learning activities to all students starting on Wednesday, April 1. These materials are to help students stay engaged in learning during the school closure and will not be graded nor count towards school credit.” said Forest Grove School District superintendent Dave Parker in a March 27 letter to parents and families in the district.
In light of the new guidance from the DOE, though, it’s uncertain what the district will do to meet the new requirements outlined in a 28 page document.
“We are setting up a group to work on how ODE’s instructions will look in our district,” said David Warner, a spokesperson for the district in an email to the Gales Creek Journal.
The group is made up of staff from all grade levels and programs throughout the district, Warner said.
While most of the students in the Forest Grove School District reside in the Portland Metro region, with good internet access to be able to engage in online remote education, families in Gales Creek are not always so fortunate.
With spotty or no internet access for some, and traditional internet access alternatives such as libraries closed, some families will have to rely on physical learning packets, a challenge the district was addressing by providing pickup locations for printed materials for those without technological access.
Other challenges include how to provide education for students with special education needs, and students with language barriers.
And other issues, such as how the state plans to graduate the 2020 class of seniors, remain an unknown.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Gales Creek Journal and sister news publications the Banks Post and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.
