Students to learn from home for remainder of school year

Demopolis students will not report to schools for the rest of the term, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

That doesn’t mean learning for the year has ended. It will be taking on a new form.

Demopolis City Schools and systems across the state are working on ways to make sure students continue to receive all the materials for instruction they need to complete the year and be prepared for school in the fall.

But many of those procedures remain up in the air. “There are so many things that need to be answered,” said DCS Supt. Kyle Kallhoff.

Gov. Kay Ivey announced that schools campuses will remain closed during a press conference Thursday afternoon held jointly with state superintendent Dr. Eric Mackey.

“This decision has not been made lightly,” she said.

She issued a supplemental State of Emergency which allows Mackey and his team to provide instruction from home for the remainder of the school year.

“We must be serious about the elimination the spread of this virus,” said Ivey. “This is for real. This is a deadly situation.”

She said the primary goal is to prevent is a tremendous slide in student learning and achievement.

Kallhoff said superintendents knew school closing was coming and were invited to submit questions for a web conference with the State Department of Education set for Friday morning. Demopolis principals and instructional leaders will be sitting in on the meeting as well to get guidance on how to prepare for the rest of the school year.

Demopolis will be preparing a combination of on-line and printed instructional packets, said Kallhoff, since not all students have internet access.

Next week all of the DCS teachers will be brought on board to help with plans for the remainder of the year. It helps, said Kallhoff, that next week was the scheduled spring break for the system.

 “Nothing can replace the interaction between the teacher and the students in a classroom setting,” Ivey said in her announcement. “However, access to high quality instruction is crucial to our students to maintain a competitive edge academically.”

Since the original order to close schools until April 6 went out, most school systems had at least one week of spring break and lost only about seven days of instruction, Mackey continued. Instruction can be compressed to include the critical standards: reading and math for lower grades and for higher classes, the credit courses.

The end of the school year now is set for June 5.

The order to close schools also means that all spring activities are eliminated. Graduation ceremonies, he hopes, can be delayed until later in the summer.