Over one third of students in the Ellensburg School District have registered for Virtual Academy. All students in the district will be taking online classes at the start of fall quarter, either in Virtual Academy or the hybrid model. This is according to ESD Executive Director of Student Services Kelly Kronbauer.
Virtual Academy was created for students and families who did not feel comfortable going to class in-person. Students in the academy will remain in it for a semester, at which point they can choose to switch back to the hybrid model.
Both models were created by the district when the district still believed students would be able to attend school in-person. On Aug. 5, the district followed the county’s back-to-school recommendation and moved all classes online.
Around 800 students registered for the Virtual Academy before all classes were moved online, the original deadline was Aug. 2. After ESD decided to start the year fully remote, the deadline was pushed to Aug. 12. Kronbauer said the deadline was pushed back a couple times afterwards, with the final deadline being Aug. 17 at midnight, by which time over 1,200 students had registered.
The district decided to have a deadline for students who can register so it is possible to develop complete systems and have an idea of how many teachers need to be assigned to the academy, according to Kronbauer.
“Instead of kids sitting in their classrooms, kids will be online and they will do synchronous virtual instruction,” Kronbauer said.
He said there will be two teaching models for students in the Virtual Academy, synchronous where teachers will meet with classes each week, and asynchronous where teachers will use prerecorded curriculum where students can follow the lesson or activity on their own.
“So. there is both a combination of in-person time using the video system where they’ll do either whole group, small group or one on one,” Kronbauer said. “We are committed to having our families connect with our teachers weekly.”
Kronbauer said giving families an opportunity to connect with teachers and ask questions is something the district found very important and wanted to ensure it was something that was available. He said it would be a different depending on grade level.
The hybrid model is also online, but if the district gets the all-clear to resume in-person education, students in this model will be the ones returning to class. The hybrid model with in-person education would have students split into groups “A” and “B” and attend class on alternating days, taking online classes on days they are not physically at class.
“Those kids will then, when we deem that safe, we will then revert that remote learning for those kids back to hybrid,” Kronbauer said. “Basically 2,200 kids in our district are going to do that route.”
According to Kronbauer, the Virtual Academy will have teachers dedicated to the academy. The district has counted the number of students from each school who have entered the academy, and the principals of these schools assigned the teachers. There was a system to find which teachers would be best for these positions based on interests, health risks and willingness to do it.
“We have group of teachers in elementary, middle and high in all buildings who will be virtual teachers,” Kronbauer said. “Some teachers in K-5 were planning on being full-day virtual, while 6-12 is going to be a lot of teachers who are going to teach both hybrid and virtual, meaning they might teach three hybrid classes and then do two virtual classes.”
Kronbauer said the higher-grade level teachers will be doing both Virtual Academy and hybrid because they are more specialized with their content.
