Every student in the Park City School District has two district-offered options this fall. Students can attend in-person school or students can attend remote school. If parents don’t choose an option, their students will be enrolled in in-person school. If parents choose the remote option, they need to declare that by August 7, using this form. If you can declare it earlier, that will help the district plan more effectively.

For elementary schools, remote learning will require a one-term commitment. A student can not vacillate between options. Classes will be taught by a Park City School District teacher, so your kid won’t be pawned off to Kahn Academy. That said, you still do have the option, like you always have, to use third-party, online educational services.

For remote elementary learning, we don’t know who a student’s teacher will be yet — and it is likely the school district doesn’t know yet either. Will it be one of the teachers that normally teaches your child’s grade at your school? That’s unlikely unless 25 children sign up for remote learning from one grade at one school. So, it will likely be a teacher teaching multiple grades that may come from your school, another school in PC, or at the district office. That likely all depends on how many children and the distribution of children that select remote learning by August 7.

If you select the remote option, it won’t be like the spring. There will be a schedule that your child must follow. The current plan is for live check-ins to be at 9 AM and 12:30 PM. So, your child must be there for those or they won’t be counted in attendance records. Then there in Math, Reading, Science/Social Studies, PE/Coding/Arts/Music, independent work, writing, and small group and one-on-one time. Recesses, breaks, and lunch happen throughout the day.

Through second-grade, remote education will be done through See-Saw. Canvas will be used for 3rd through fifth grade. By declaring which tools will be used, the district has answered one of its largest criticism form the spring: too many tools were used and parents often didn’t know what application to use. The downside of this is that elementary teachers, who haven’t used Canvas before, will have to learn it.

The district at least has a plan for the semester, which is good. There are a number of issues up in the air, but that’s to be expected. Plans also change, so things could look a little different in a month and we should know more as we get closer to August 20. That said, at least there is some information to choose whether you want your child to attend remotely or in-person.

Here is a sample First Grade schedule provided by the Park City School District.

If you have kids in Park City schools, you’ve probably been following the school reopening plans. School will go on — on August 20th. It sounds like schools will continue throughout the year over hell and high water. You have two options, in-person and online.

In-person will be a corona-ized version of what we are used to. Online will be taught by PCSD teachers. Buses will run on their normal routes. Before I get into thoughts on reopening, here is my bullet-point list of items I sent to a friend as meetings were going on.

• They are going to wash their hands a lot. Studies show that is important.
• They will send home a magnet that tells people how they should check their kids for symptoms every day.
• Every kid gets two CC, double-layer, microbial gators. A double layer has shown more effective.
• Masks must be worn on buses
• Teachers will get masks and can also wear a face shield
• There will be a video with a calming voice, like when you get on a Delta Flight and they tell you what to do when the plane crashes, that will reassure children that everything is going to be OK.
• Kids should be practicing wearing masks from August 1.
• Hygiene posters will be in every class telling students (that are old enough to read) how to wash their hands.
• PCSD decided on in-person because of social equity. This way can help equity.
• In-person will be done by a PC school teacher
• Remote will be done by a PC School Teacher “down the hall.” If a child needs to stop in-person because they get suck or their parents get sick they can go remote. [Note: this was somewhat contradicted in the PC Ed Foundation meeting because they said students would need to stay in-person or remote for a quarter. So not sure about this.]
• Remote attendance will require remote students to be online at certain times.
• June survey said five elementary kids per school would be remote.
• Not doing a split schedule because we don’t have 38-40 kids per class like some places in Utah.
• Teacher subs will be assigned to one school. They will not float.
• Dual immersion students should attend in person (recommended).
• Increasing fresh air to 50% in all schools… so dress accordingly. It may be COLD in the morning in schools.
• Lunch will be grab-and-go. Assigned seats will happen at lunch. High school kids may get to pick the table they are assigned to.
• A parent developed a new computer program called Health Attend. PCSD paying $1 a year for it. Parents will be able to look at how many people are sick in classes and make decisions on whether they should send their kids to school.
• The school is responsible for contact tracing in the event of a coronavirus case.
• The district is planning for intermittent attendance.
• Encouraging kids not to use lockers.
• PCSD is not using a purchased curriculum.
• Teachers will come back two days early. Teachers can take a seminar on how to teach remotely. Teachers must rely on their Principals. Teachers are empowered to innovate.
• K-2 will use See-Saw. 3rd grade through 12th will be Canvas. Teachers in 3rd to 5th grade need to learn Canvas.
• DLI 1st-5th should be done in-person but can be done remotely but not as well.
• Every school has an ionizer for air. They purchased those in March. Installed Merv 15 filters. Anything larger than 3 microns is filtered. Should help with mold, pollen, etc. as well as Corona.
• There will be mask breaks for elementary. Playgrounds won’t require masks.
• Schools will remain in-person full-time unless Summit County moves back to Orange and then schools will be a hybrid in-person/remote model. Red would mean fully remote.
• You have until Agust 7th to register your child for remote learning. Otherwise, they will be in-person by default.

So, those were my notes from the school board meeting and parts of the PC ED Foundation meeting. I don’t guarantee that the district said everything correctly or I captured it correctly but it should be generally correct.

We’re about a month out from Park City schools starting the fall semester. This year will obviously function differently, given Covid-19. We’d expect the school district to come out with plans soon, so we parents know what to expect. However, we know the school district likes to wait and be told what to do from the Governor and Utah State Board of Education.

So, we thought we would present you with what other school districts have decided so far.

So, in NYC, ABC is reporting , “New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a hybrid back-to-school plan Wednesday with most students inside their physical schools just two or three days a week, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo said it’s up to him to decide whether schools can open at all.”

Here in Utah, Governor Herbert has announced school will be in person this fall. However, that could be a half day a week or some portion of six days a week. We know how politicians like to parse words.

It’s instructive to look at what the Jordan School District down in SLC announced this week. They are one of the first districts to announce their plans and are about ten times larger than Park City with about 55,000 students. They are going with four days of in-person school and one in-home school. According to KSL, “The Jordan School Board unanimously approved a motion Monday that would bring students back to school for in-person classes Monday through Thursday, with each Friday being used for online classwork, small-group learning, and additional teacher consultation.”

What strikes me as interesting with Jordan is that they surveyed teachers and parents on how they wanted the schools to work. The school board went with the option that was chosen the most by teachers and second-most by parents. They deciced on four days of in-person school per week.

It should be interesting to see what the Park City School District does with regard to in-person school. It’s closing in on the time that they should let us know. Are kids going to attend four days a week? Will it be normal with a full four and a half days a week? Will they go half days, with specialists online? Can families opt out of in-person school?

Odds are, they know what they are going to do. Now we are just waiting.

Over the weekend a friend sent me an infographic describing the financial costs of re-opening schools. It shows the estimated additional costs that a school district with 8 schools and 3,700 students will need to account for this year. The additional cost is about $1.8 million. The Park City School District has a similar number of schools but about 900 more kids. So, we’re likely looking at over $2 million in additional costs. It’s mind-blowing.

Perhaps my favorite piece of this infographic is in the fine print. “Model assumes 25% transportation capacity to adhere to social distancing guidelines (Bus fleets would need to quadruple in size to safely transport 100% of students… which is financially unfeasible for districts).” That should make traffic interesting this Fall.

I’m assuming schools will open this Fall. I think it would take a real act of god to get our legislators from Southern Utah Governor to close schools again. That said, I don’t know how a district absorbs these costs. Rainy day funds only go so far.

I’ve assumed school may look different. Perhaps there will be odd-even days. Perhaps days will be split in two (an 8 AM -11 AM group of kids and 1 PM to 4 PM group) with specialists handled remotely. Lunch may be in the classroom. For younger kids, recess may be limited. Yet I’m not sure how much any of that impacts cost.

This is the time that makes you glad you didn’t run for the school board. For the current board members, I say THANKS. This isn’t going to be easy.

Click here to download a larger PDF version of this document.

Note: Thanks to Shannon who asked me to check on activities funds and whether they were typically paid by the district. It appears they are a pass through item and I have updated the story accordingly.