Northshore School District doubles down on distance learning for this fall

Parents wondering what the upcoming school year will entail got more clarity this week. Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee is recommending that most schools offer online learning this fall due to Covid-19.

The Northshore School District, which covers Bothell, Kenmore, and Woodinville, is planning to start the year with 100% distance learning. It was the first school district to close its doors earlier this year, weeks before state officials ordered school closures.

Michelle Reid, the district's superintendent, told KUOW about the experience of quickly pivoting to distance learning in the spring, and described how the pandemic has further exposed inequities in education.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the audio version by clicking the play button above.

There have been so many gaps that have been illuminated and highlighted during the pandemic, that truly have been here all along. There are districts in our state that don't have access, for example, to broadband internet. There are districts who don't have sufficient devices, or even if they have broadband access, don't have hotspot or internet devices for their students. That's a grave concern.

Other gaps that we have are meals. We've been able to provide well over 150,000 meals since the school physical buildings have been closed, and we've been able to deliver those, but it's my understanding our federal food service waivers are sunsetting here shortly, which may make that a real challenge in the fall. I'm very concerned about that.

We also have childcare supports that we've been providing with our community partners. In our case, we've never fully utilized all of the childcare slots available. We think we have that challenge managed here in Northshore.

We're characterizing our online learning platform as the backbone for our instruction for the year. Whether we move to a hybrid [model] at some point in the year or not, we're utilizing the online learning model as the backbone.

All of our academic work is being carefully planned for students, parents, and staff. We feel like if we can focus our energy on that, specifically, we could do that really well, rather than trying to focus our energy on five, or six, or seven types of different models, and maybe not do any of those well.

When students are able to be physically at school, we still will have lesson access from those modules, whether the teacher is in the classroom physically or remotely.

[We are prepared to do this] as long as it takes. I think that everyone is working so hard to try to craft a vaccine, and effective treatments, and preventive measures. As a learning institution, we're leaning into this, and learning as much as we can about the disease, how to prevent it, and how to operate safely within it. As we learn that, we're going to continue to support our students, and families, and staff in a safe and healthy way.

Many of the state's largest school districts, including Seattle and Lake Washington, have also announced they will start this fall with a remote learning model.