By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — School isn't going to look the same in the fall, though the details are still being worked out.
"We need to be prepared for a blended learning model," said USD 308 Superintendent Mike Folks. "That's what Randy Watson has challenged us with. The other thing with online learning that we're in the process of studying and we're waiting for some information from the Kansas State Department of Education, is taking our standards and changing, transitioning those into competencies, more of a competencies based model."
How much time is spent in the school building is still up in the air right now.
"You might have some seat time, some direct instruction that we're very familiar with and accustomed to," Folks said. "Then, you might have some online stuff that you do at home. That's what a blended model means to me."
If you are using online instruction at all, there are resource issues with that.
"We have many more challenges that we have faced, where about 30% of our families did not have internet connectivity," Folks said. "We had five or six hundred Chromebooks that we deployed to our families, to our students. Our families, our students need to have that high-speed connectivity and they also need to have a device to have blended learning."
Thanks to recent action by the USD 308 school board, the district will be one-to-one with devices for students from grades 4-12 for next year.