LOUISVILLE, Ky. — More than 98,000 students are now working from home, something JCPS has never had to do before.
"We are so large this remote learning is not something that we've ever really engaged in previously," JCPS Spokeswoman Rennee Murphy said Tuesday. "We did all of that in two short weeks, and we were able to build these systems and infrastructures from the ground up."
Murphy said the first day of non-traditional instruction was a "success" for the first day students returned to the classroom virtually.
JCPS mom Katie Danner agreed, adding that turning in her son's work was made easy because her son's teacher helped familiarize the family with her website the night before.
"It went really well, I think we had a good day," Danner said. "I was able to submit it, just pictures of it from my phone so she could see it and then we were able to check in also from her website which worked perfectly today so hopefully they're getting through all the hitches and it continues that way."
A mother of two kids, Danner said she spent about three hours on schoolwork with her 3rd grade son Bennett today. From her understanding, she said this first week is a choiceboard with different assignment options.
"Next week it's going to be a little bit different because they're not going to do the choice board it's going to be more of specific assignments for every day," Danner said.
JCPS says it received 20,000 requests from families for a chrome book and it has shipped about half so far. Murphy said the district is still in the process of shipping the rest and hope to have them to households by the end of this week or early next week.
"If you don't have a chrome book right now as we start NTI that's okay. The name of the game right now is flexibility and our teachers, our schools understand that this is when we have to be flexible right now," she said. "You can still engage in the instruction even if you don't have a device so don't feel like if you don't have that chromebook yet you can't do your schoolwork, because you can."
Murphy said hard copies of schoolwork are available for parents to pick up at the food delivery sites. She said schoolwork can also be accessed through a smartphone on the district website if a family has access to internet.
Despite not all families having chromebooks yet, Murphy said the district was still well-prepared for the first day of NTI.
"I think families were prepared, I think families were informed," she said. "There's going to be some hiccups, we're certainly going to have some bumps in the road along the way. It's inevitable any time you start something new, but I can tell you our teachers were ready."
Danner said she believes teachers will be the main source of communication with families. The district is also encouraging teachers to reach out at least once a week.
"That could look like video conferencing if they have access to the internet, that could be a phone call, that could be through text messages, through email. There's several platforms for our teachers and our families to engage with one another," Murphy said.
Day one, Danner said, was already a little challenging to get her son to focus on schoolwork from a home environment.
"They are being very flexible which is good so he doesn't have to get it in in a certain amount of time during the day as long as it's done at some point," she said. "Keeping on that schedule is going to be key to getting the work done and especially in the morning. That way we still have the afternoon to go out and play and be outside."
While Danner said she's nervous about an extended period of time out of the classroom, she's hopeful there won't be a long-term impact.
"I would be silly not to say that I'm a little nervous about next year making sure that he is caught up because the transition from third to fourth grade often is very difficult for kids," Danner said. "Every kid is going to be in the same situation, i think that helps ease any parents' fears."
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