GCSC launches webpage for eLearning days

Tuesday, January 28, 2020
The new eLearning page of the Greencastle Community Schools website serves as a guide and link to resources for students, parents and teachers for days when school is canceled. The right side of the page also has a place to take attendance on eLearning days. Students or their parents must be marked as present for attendance to count on eLearning days.
Courtesy photo

Greencastle parents and students have a new tool when assistance is needed on eLearning days.

When regular school is canceled due to snow, other weather or any other reason, completing assignments through school-issued devices should be simple enough for the students.

But for the days when it’s not so simple, Greencastle Community Schools has launched a new webpage to serve as an eLearning day resource for students, parents and even teachers.

Curriculum Director Jenny French gave a brief overview of the new page Monday evening at the monthly meeting of the Greencastle School Board.

French said the page, which is available on the toolbar of the main GCSC page (www.greencastle.k12.in.us/) was created to add clarity to the process of eLearning days as well as providing resources.

These resources include a brief video featuring French and Technology Integrator C. J. Shields giving an overview and instructions for eLearning days.

Among these resources is a list of community partners that offer free WiFi; a brief guide to Canvas, the learning management system for GCSC and links to download the Canvas app for Apple or Android; and resources for teachers.

Perhaps most importantly to the school, the page contains a form that takes attendance for eLearning days. Since eLearning days are counted as official days by the Indiana Department of Education, schools must take attendance.

“If a kid or parent doesn’t get this done, they will be counted absent, even if they complete their work,” French said.

A student must be counted present on the page by midnight on the day of the closure for his or her attendance to count.

French also used her time before the board to speak about the possibility of the corporation offering virtual classes, an idea she and Greencastle Middle School Principal Scott Weltz have been discussing.

“Education isn’t a one-size-fits-all model for our kids,” French said, noting that health problems, anxiety issues, custody battles and other issues make the traditional school model the wrong fit for many students.

Noting that GCSC has lost students in a number of ways, including to virtual programs, French said the creation of a virtual academy for students in middle and high school is being explored.

One plus for the corporation is that all virtual students count as 85 percent of average daily membership (ADM), meaning the corporation would still collect 85 percent of the state money given for traditional students, an improvement over zero percent when a student leaves.

French noted that GCSC also already has a platform for such a program based on the online curriculum of its alternative school.

She then pointed to Union School Corporation in Modoc. In 2016, the tiny corporation had just 260 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Union started a virtual academy and its ADM has swollen to more than 4,000.

She also pointed out that Cloverdale is planning to start a virtual academy, meaning there will soon be a local option for students and parents seeking the virtual learning environment.

During public comments at the end of the meeting, the proposal met with a number of questions from audience members. School officials reassured them that it was not being proposed as something to supersede the traditional learning environment, just an alternative for those who would probably leave anyway.

“We are just trying to come up with yet another way to serve more students,” Weltz said.

Board President Mike White also emphasized that efforts were only exploratory at this time but that it is a way to address the very real problem of declining enrollment for not only GCSC, but most rural schools.

“We have lost students eight of the last 10 years,” White said. “This is a trend with rural schools. By just saying, ‘we hope it doesn’t happen next year,’ we’re not going to fix the problem.”

Comments
View 1 comment
Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. Please note that those who post comments on this website may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.
  • This entire concept is going to be interesting to watch going forward and I am not referring from a specific Greencastle or Cloverdale perspective but a societal and education delivery/ experience.

    -- Posted by beg on Wed, Jan 29, 2020, at 4:43 PM
Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: