ROCK SPRINGS — The Sweetwater County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees approved a policy this week that will allow student to temporarily access classes through virtual learning in accordance with Wyoming Department of Education regulations.
The policy was approved partly because school districts in Wyoming need to meet a November 1 deadline as mandated by the WEA regulation.
Several district employees expressed concerns about the policy citing the challenges virtual learning created during the pandemic.
Sage Elementary School third-grade teacher Marty Albert asked the board to remove languaage from the policy that says “if a student doesn’t want to come to school.”
“I’ve heard assurances that that will never happen. If it’s in the policy, it will happen,” Albert said. “I know if came from the state board accepted language…I’m uninformed if that’s within the legal reqiirements that the Legislature has put down.”
Albert also brought up a policy issue about virtual snow days. She lives in Green River and was told by her principal to purchase a “hot spot” when the power outage last year prevented her from teaching from her computer.
“Where are you going to buy or hot spot or charge it in a town that has no power and no internet?” Albert asked the board. “I was told I absolutely had to teach. But I was in a position where I could not teach from my home.”
She said she did something “totally unsafe” by driving to Rock Springs and teaching in person but then got in trouble “for teaching in my school.”
“There was no possibility that I could teach from my home that day, and there was absolutely no allowance for the fact that I could not,” Albert said.
We know that didn’t work and we’re paying the price for that still. In terms of improving student achievement, we clearly don’t want to go back there.
SCSD No. 1 Board Chairwoman Carol Jelaco
Superintendent Kelly McGovern said this new policy is “very different” from policies used during the pandemic. She said having a teacher work from home would “have to be such an extenuating circumstance that would warrant approval.”
“(This policy) is not the daly recording of lessons that our teachers did to survive crisis teaching,” McGovern said.
She added that the district adamantly wants to avoid placing students and teachers in harm’s way and apologized to Albert for the incident. She also said if a teacher needs to miss more than one day due to extenuating circumstances, the policy has provisions allowing them to put lessons on Canvas using ParentSquare.
“The danger of not doing a policy like this that it will really put the district back several steps,” McGovern said. “If we don’t have something to turn in by November 1 then we’re stuck for a whole other year.”
The board will send the approval back to the district policy committee for review but it passed unanimously after the motion was made.
Bettolo Resigns Seat
Trustee John Bettolo resigned his seat on the board Tuesday night after tendering a letter to the district. He was not present at the meeting.
The board will advertise and accept applications for his open seat through Wednesday, November 9, at 4 p.m. and conduct interviews to replace his seat the next day at 6 p.m.
