Wrangell’s new schools superintendent wants to provide students as many choices as possible for learning, though he acknowledges it’s hard for the small district to provide in-person teaching for every subject students may want.
Over time, that may mean more online classes, led by instructors outside Wrangell, said Bill Burr, who took over as schools superintendent on July 1, moving to Wrangell from the Delta/Greely School District in the Interior.
Burr sees the potential for additional class subjects as a positive. “We want to give our students as many options as we can,” he said.
For example, Wrangell may need to turn to a remote teacher or online course if it wants to add more languages to its curriculum. The teacher who led the Spanish class left at the end of the past school year. A new teacher in the district will lead a class in American Sign Language, but that will be the only in-person language class offered this year, Burr said.
To help with assembling a list of what the schools could add or change to better meet the needs of its students and the community, the district last week sent out an online survey. Though mostly focused on COVID-19 health protocols, the survey asks: “In what other areas can Wrangell Public Schools do better to help meet the needs of student(s) in the community?”
The survey can be found on the school district website http://www.wpsd.us.
Burr said he hopes students, parents and other community members will go online to complete the survey — or pick up a copy from the district office at Evergreen Elementary School — by mid-August. Classes will start Aug. 30.
One issue Burr said he and the staff will look at for the new school year is how to help any students who experienced “learning loss” over the past school year due to the pandemic.
Though Wrangell schools stayed open most of the school year — far more than many other districts around the state — there were interruptions, and dozens of students left the schools for homeschooling or online instruction programs outside of the Wrangell district.
The district will receive about $700,000 in federal pandemic aid under the American Rescue Plan Act, which requires that at least 20% of the money must be used to address learning loss “through the implementation of evidence-based interventions,” according to an Alaska Department of Education briefing paper.
“Those interventions respond to students’ social, emotional and academic needs and address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19” on certain students, including racial and ethnic groups, children from low-income families and children with disabilities, the state briefing explained.
“Learning loss is still being reviewed,” Burr said last week. Options could include using online or remote instructors for students who need additional help in specific areas.
“We would like to think there was not a huge loss in Wrangell, as we stayed open a majority of the year,” he said.
The district has until September 2024 to spend the $700,000 from the latest round of federal aid. The school board voted to use half the money to plug holes in the budget for the 2021-2022 school year, saving the rest for future needs.
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