EDUCATION

Green Bay School District students return to class for mixture of virtual and pencil-and-paper instruction

Green Bay Press-Gazette

Kent Theel, left, works on a computer as Tom Deboth, middle, helps a student and parent get a Chromebook on Monday at Washington Middle School in Green Bay. Students grades six through 12 can continue to pick up Chromebooks from noon to 3 p.m. through Friday.

GREEN BAY - School resumed Monday for more than 21,000 Green Bay public school students with a mix of virtual and pencil-and-paper instruction.

The state's fourth-largest district used a week-long spring break beginning March 13 and the week immediately following Gov. Tony Evers' order to shut down all schools statewide to prepare teachers for an extended and still open-ended period of distance learning.

Older students will be able to use district-issued Chromebooks to complete assignments and learning online.

However, students in K-4 through fifth grade will be limited to paper and pencils because there are not enough district Chrombooks available for all students, and also due to concerns that they may not have access to to Wi-Fi or an appropriate device of their own.

Those younger students will be mailed workbooks and other instructional activities that they can work on at home. The district said teachers will "regularly" be in contact with students and families to provide support and provide additional resources for learning in other subjects, including social studies, science, art, music and physical education.

"While we will be unable to deliver the same programming, services and instruction that we provide students when school is in session, we have developed an alternative learning plan that we believe will ensure that our seniors will be able to graduate and that our students will be able to maintain and sustain their learning," Green Bay schools Superintendent Michelle Langenfeld said Monday in a news release outlining the district's plan.

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Green Bay, like many large districts in urban settings, faces daunting challenges as it launches online learning in such a short period of time.

Perhaps chief among those challenges is what's called the homework gap, a term that refers to school-age children — disproportionately black, Hispanic and lower-income —who lack the internet connections they need to complete schoolwork at home.

Of Green Bay's 21,000-some students, just over 55% are non-white and nearly 60% of students receive free and reduced lunch.

Although Charter Communication will provide free broadband and Wi-Fi access for the next two months to households with school-age or college students, Langenfeld said the district recognizes not all families can take advantage of that opportunity, whether because their first language isn't English or because they only have a smart phone for children to complete school work on.

"We recognize that accessing that kind of Wi-Fi takes additional resources," she told the Green Bay Press-Gazette in a previous interview.

Green Bay's recommendations for student learning is 30 minutes per day for pre-kindergarten students, one hour a day for kindergarten through second grade, two hours a day for third through fifth grade, and three to four hours a day for sixth through 12th grade.

Contact reporter Samantha West at 920-996-7207 or swest@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @BySamanthaWest.