Kaneland to implement remote learning on winter weather emergency days

Kaneland McDole Elementary School teacher Ally Van Bogaert teaches to an exclusively remote group of students using Zoom from her classroom at the school.

Kaneland snow days may get the cold shoulder after the District 302 School Board approved the replacement of weather-related emergency days with remote learning during Monday’s meeting.

“These remote learning days would be in lieu of our typical or traditional snow days or inclement weather days,” said Patrick Raleigh, director of 6-12 grade educational services. “Those have been anywhere from cold days to snow, but when we cannot get to the building, those days were called [emergency days].”

Instead of canceling school and making up the day at the end of the year, Raleigh said the new approach to emergency days would take advantage of remote learning tools.

“In looking at this, we want to make sure that our teachers and our staff members and our community is best prepared for a day of learning,” Raleigh said. “As we’ve gotten used to our devices, we’ve gotten used to Chromebooks and Canvas and learning in that mode, our recommendation is to use these emergency days.”

A decision on whether to use the remote learning day would need to be made no later than the night before, Raleigh said.

“If we can listen to different meteorologists, different weather channels and the evidence is showing that inclement weather is on the way and we can make that call by 8 p.m. the night before, we have thought that might be enough time for our teachers to get ready to teach via Zoom for second through 12th grade,” Raleigh said.

Raleigh said students would follow the same schedule as their normal school day. Students would be expected to meet with their teachers remotely during typical school hours.

State law allows for five school closure days, Raleigh said. The school closure day would be made up at the end of the school year if the district used more than five remote learning emergency days, Raleigh said.

Sarah Mumm, director of early childhood to fifth grade educational services, said kindergarten and first grade students don’t have a one-to-one device assigned to them and would be taught using themed “blizzard bag” activity kits.

“We have all the resources ready. It’s just a matter of printing and deciding [on the] lessons that we have written through our educator advisory council,” she said. “We hope to send the ‘blizzard bags’ around that parent conference time, so we know they get safely tucked away somewhere at home. We’ll try to remind parents where they are and we’ll have extras.”

First grade and kindergarten students will be able to access a three-hour block of teacher office hours during remote learning days, Mumm said.

Raleigh said all materials will be posted on Canvas for students by the time class begins on the remote learning day.

“If there is a need for a student to be absent during that time, just like they would typically, call the attendance line, so that procedure would stay in place,” Raleigh said.

Raleigh and Mumm said internet hotspots will be provided to staff and students if necessary.

“We hope to not have to use any of them,” Superintendent Todd Leden said. “If we do need to, that planning the night before allows for that to take place.”

Leden said student attendance during remote learning days would be closely monitored.

“If we find out that we are having a remote day, but other kids are still taking a snow day, and if there are too many of those taking place, there’s not enough students that are logging in, then we’ll just go back to snow days,” he said.