Rocky Boy School Board picks graduated re-opening plan

Rocky Boy Schools Board of Trustees Tuesday approved a re-opening plan that starts with distanced learning and moves through phases into classroom instruction.

Rocky Boy Public Schools Superintendent Voyd St. Pierre said Tuesday that the board approved his recommendation to start the school year off August 26 via a remote/distance learning model for all PreK-12 students attending the schools.

St. Pierre said the remote or distance learning option would run through Sept. 30.

Oct. 1, the district would switch to a blended/hybrid learning model, where students would be grouped into odd and even grade levels and attend school for two days per week and participate in remote or distance learning for the other three days per week.

This could run thru the end of the quarter or semester, St. Pierre said.

“Of course, all plans are contingent upon the current status of the local and state COVID-19 rates in our area,” he added. The board could make appropriate school option adjustments according to the health threat levels.”

St. Pierre said parents also said parents have the option to keep their children at home for the entire school year and participate in remote or distance learning.

“Long-range, we could plan for a full in-person option at the start of the spring semester in January 2021,” he said. “We will be working on a final, more detailed operational plan on Thursday and Friday of this week to establish common protocols of how our schools will function daily.”

The district put out a survey for parents and district staff members to list their preferred options.

Using that and other data and state recommendations, the district created four options that were presented Tuesday, full return, full remote, a hybrid plan and an option for parents to keep their children at home.

St. Pierre said Monday that the situation will be monitored by the district on a day-by-day and week-by-week basis to see how things are going locally, statewide and nationally.