Science teacher Matt Dahl sits among his students during class last week.
While science teacher Matt Dahl sits with students in his Litchfield Middle School classroom, he also engages with the other half of his class who are learning at home through the Google Meet app.
English teacher Susan Rohrbeck wears a face shield while talking to students during class last week.
Susan Rohrbeck uses the newest tool in her teaching toolbox, a touch screen television. Rohrbeck wrote a grant for the television and is piloting its use this school year.
Teachers and students seem to agree with near unanimity — it’s difficult, if not impossible, to replicate the in-class experience on a computer screen.
Yet, given the hand they’ve been dealt, teachers in Litchfield Public Schools have been doing what they can during the COVID-19 pandemic to make students learning at home feel like part of the classroom.
“There has been a lot of change,” Litchfield Middle School Principal Chelsea Brown said. “They (teachers) are rewriting the playbook in all of this.”
When this school year started in August with classrooms open to everyone, teachers were trying to reach the nearly 80 students who had chosen to attend class remotely. The task became more challenging last week, when — with COVID-19 infection rates rising in Meeker County and some reported cases in the school — the middle and high school switched to the so-called hybrid instruction model.
Under that model the student body is divided into two groups with Cohort A attending in-class instruction Monday and Tuesday, and Cohort B in school on Thursday and Friday. When not in school students attend class virtually, on their school-issued laptop computer. Teachers and students use Wednesdays as a conferencing or “check-in” day to ensure students receive the instruction they need.
Everyone in the educational system received a sort of test run for distance or at-home learning this past spring. An executive order from Gov. Tim Walz closed all schools in the state in March in response to the pandemic.
“Since that Friday, March 13, (when the executive order came down) I’ve told our teachers we are going to be building that plane while flying it,” Brown said.
During the more than two months of distance learning in the spring, teachers and administrators pinpointed issues with instruction and technology and tried to react to them on the fly. During the summer months — unsure what school might look like this school year — the district tried to refine its distance learning tactics.
“We spent all summer preparing,” Brown said. “A lot of really good things that we did came out of all of this.”
One of the most significant things was a plan for synchronous learning — the idea that all students, whether in the classroom or watching on a laptop at home, would receive the same instruction at the same time. It’s an approach that leans heavily on technology, with teachers gathering their at-home learners with in-school students through the Google Meet application.
Of course, that starts with access to a computer, a tool that was ensured when district residents approved a technology levy in 2014 allowing the purchase of one laptop or tablet for every student.
“We are very fortunate to be a district that had the one-to-one devices right off the bat,” Brown said. “Many districts were really struggling with this, because they didn’t have the funds or means to have one-to-one devices.”
Katie McGraw, a math teacher at the middle school, agreed that the district’s technology investment has made the transition to the era of pandemic teaching easier.
“To be able to teach synchronously, we’ve never done that before, so that is a learning experience,” McGraw said. “But I just think our district is leaps and bounds ahead of where, when I talk to other teachers from districts that have never done any of it, are.
“We’ve had a tremendous amount of professional development on how to use technology,” McGraw added. “When we first got our Macbooks, we were spending most of our professional development on just how to use this technology. So we are very fortunate to be able to have that background.”
Given that one-to-one technology baseline, the district still had to figure out “how do we enhance opportunities for kids, especially when they are working at home as online learners,” Brown said. “We’re growing this model. It’s been so impressive with our staff, with how they’ve embraced this.”
Heading into the school year, the district purchased a tablet computer for every classroom teacher, along with a gooseneck stand. Paired, the two items allow the teacher to stand at the front of the class and be captured on a live-stream video, so that students in the classroom and at home receive the lecture at the same time.
“I think as a district, for synchronous learning, we’re doing as well as we could be doing,” Matt Dahl, a science teacher at the middle school, said. “Not saying it isn’t a challenge, but we have the tools.”
Dahl is in his sixth year of teaching in the Litchfield School District, where he has taught everything from sixth-grade science to high school biology. Nothing could have prepared him for the kind of teaching he and his peers are doing now, he said.
“It definitely is different than any year I’ve taught before,” Dahl said. “If there’s one thing it’s shown me it is that kids learn the best in school. It makes you appreciate them being in school.”
Students have overwhelmingly supported in-person instruction, Dahl said, and were concerned when the move to hybrid learning was announced.
McGraw, who is in her 29th year of teaching, agreed with that assessment, though she said she thinks both teachers and students have begun to adapt to online instruction.
“Kids are learning the system, they’re learning how to be online learners,” McGraw said. “It takes time, but I think it gets better every day.”
Some of that improvement has to do with the way that teachers spot a problem and look for a solution.
An example is that the middle school will add remote speakers and speaker headsets for to classrooms for teacher use. That decision comes from recognition that masked teachers — everyone in any school building must wear a mask or face shield — can be difficult to hear and understand.
Brown credited McGraw and Dahl with experimenting on their own with headsets and Bluetooth speakers. Using that system has made it easier for both in-class and at-home students to understand the teachers, McGraw said.
State guidelines require teachers wear a mask if they will be in close contact with students. However, a face shield is permissible when distanced. Both, however, create an issue with projecting speech.
McGraw said she prefers to wear the shield, so her students can see her facial expressions. But when she leaves the front of the classroom to interact more closely with students, she puts on a mask.
Dahl, meanwhile, wears a mask most of the time.
“I love to move around the room,” he said. “If I wear a mask, I don’t have to think about, ‘Oh, I’m going to interact a little more closely now.’ But either way, (mask or shield) drastically reduces where your voice goes. So something a lot of teachers are doing now is … voice amplification in their classroom.”
In a nearby classroom, meanwhile, social studies teacher Bill King uses Bluetooth earpieces with microphone, which allows him to talk directly to students learning at home.
“He’ll say, ‘Hey, Timmy, are you there?’ Doing that as a quick check to engage those kids at home,” Dahl said. “He really loves having them in his ear.”
In another classroom, language arts teacher Susan Rohrbeck uses a touchscreen television mounted on the front wall. The screen is visible to students in the classroom, but also to those attending class through their laptops. Use of the touchscreen television is a pilot project for which Rohrbeck wrote a grant request.
She jokingly discussed her new teaching tool during class last week, during which she admitted she was still learning its operation and many applications, an admission that drew a laugh from students in the room.
Rohrbeck has been designated as the technology coach at the middle school, offering training sessions for teachers and paraprofessionals, but all teachers are learning from each other.
“It’s peers learning from peers, which is great,” Brown said. “We’re asking a lot of them, and they have really embraced it.”
It’s been interesting to see some of the traditional teaching mentorships change during the past several months, Dahl said.
“The kids’ strength with technology … it has forced us to take a giant leap in our technology,” Dahl said. “Some of the younger teachers that used to lean on more experienced teachers … now that’s been kind of flipped, and the younger teachers are now helping more experienced teachers with the technology part of it.”
All with the goal of improving synchronous learning, making at-home learning as close to the actual classroom as possible.
“One big takeaway from the kids … kids learn best in school,” Dahl said. “I want to be in school, too. It makes the job easier. I prefer it over being at home.”
But until full-time, in-school instruction returns, teachers will continue to look for ways to improve the educational approach and, as Brown put it, “build the plane as they fly it.”
Jason Michels
A divided Litchfield School Board decided Sept. 28 that it would not change an education plan established by district administrators.
But the decision — like the district’s three-pronged instruction model — could change at any time, based on a precarious vote and the ever-changing status of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on Litchfield and Meeker County.
The board’s vote left in place a decision by high school Principal Jason Michels to have students in the youth service program participate in their community volunteer work only during days they are in school, not on days they are distance learning.
With the high school and middle school both in hybrid mode beginning last week — half of the students in class Monday and Tuesday, the other half on Thursday and Friday — that means that youth service program students go to their volunteer duties twice per week.
Many of the youth service students volunteer in classrooms at Lake Ripley Elementary and Litchfield Middle School.
Board member Dave Huhner said that having youth service students volunteer only on in-school days has left teachers without badly needed classroom assistance.
“I’m hearing we need to support our staff,” Huhner said at one point during what was a lengthy discussion. “I see a high school helper as an easy way of saying, ‘here’s some help.’”
Michels told the board that about 50 students currently are enrolled in the youth service program, most of them seniors. Of those, 28 assist at Lake Ripley and another 18 volunteer in middle school classrooms.
The decision to have youth service students volunteer in the classroom only on days their cohort is scheduled to be in class was like many COVID-19 related decisions the district’s administrative team has struggled with, Michels said, but he thought it was the best decision possible.
“It would be incredibly challenging” to have youth service students volunteer in the classroom even on days they are not scheduled to be in school, he said. “I would love to send the kids four or five days a week, but that’s not the situation we have.”
Huhner, who has been a strong proponent of keeping students in school throughout and has even questioned the requirement that students and teachers wear masks in school, pushed to change the decision. He said he thought originally that the youth service decision was dictated by the state, but when he realized it was a local decision, he thought he should be reconsidered.
“Kids and teachers are better off in school,” Huhner said, then questioning why the administrative team was “flying at 10,000 feet” when making decisions on the district’s education approach. He later added that, “I think you’re going to see an angry mob of parents if we do not start trying to give back to our students.”
Board member Greg Mathews asked Michels if making an exception to the in-class schedule for youth service students would “open the floodgates” to exceptions.
“Do I believe there would be multiple requests for other groups to do the same?” Michels said. “The answer would be, ‘yes.’”
“I hope there are is my answer,” Huhner replied.
But board chairman Darrin Anderson said he didn’t like the idea of reversing the administrators.
“I don’t want to open a Pandora’s box,” Anderson said. “Me personally, I hate to second guess our administrtors. By overturning their decision, we’re saying we don’t trust our administrators.”
Michels said he didn’t see it as the board invalidating administrators’ work so much as opening the door to a wide spectrum of challenges.
“To me, the fundamental question is, do we want to make exceptions for certain classes for certain reasons … because there will be more requests,” Michels said. “What vision and direction does the school board have for the future of 50-50 (hybrid learning) or going distance or in-person learning?”
Activities director Justin Brown also questioned the logistics of youth service students volunteering even on home learning days. On those days, students would have to drive to their volunteer site, and depending on where they live, might not get back home in time to join the start of their next class online.
In the end, the board rejected Huhner’s motion to allow youth service students to volunteer even on home learning days, on a 2-2-2 vote. Huhner and Chase Groskreutz supported the motion, while Anderson and Mathews opposed it, and Marcia Provencher and Julie Pennertz abstained.
Acknowledging the complexity of the issue, however, Anderson said he hoped discussion would continue. “This is not something that cannot be brought up again,” he said.
Property taxpayers in the Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City School District shouldn’t see much change in their school taxes next spring. After looking at projected revenue needs for the 2021-2022 school year, the school board unanimously decided on Sept. 28 to increase the next proposed levy by $19,320, which is less than 1 percent above this year’s levy of $3,007,075.
That doesn’t mean the district won’t seek more in some areas. For example, it plans to raise about 2.3 percent more for general education — but that would be offset by less revenue for debt service and community education, resulting in a relatively small (0.64 percent) overall increase compared to last year.
Although most education revenue in Minnesota comes through allotments from the state Legislature, using a formula based mostly on student enrollment, a portion of the total comes from property taxes. Most of the levy is set by local school boards, while other parts are authorized through voter-approved referendums. (In ACGC’s case, almost $360,000 of this proposed levy is voter-approved.)
Every fall, school officials look into a crystal ball to estimate the amount they need to raise for the next school year. Although the preliminary levy (due Sept. 30) is based upon their best “guesstimate,” it is sometimes modified by the time the final levy is set in late December. However, once a preliminary levy has been sent to the county auditor and the state department of education, local school boards are not allowed to further increase that year’s levy.
The school board set a public Truth in Taxation hearing for the proposed levy increase for 6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 21, in the ACGC High School Media Center. After the hearing, the school board could decide to lower the increase.
Return to school learning models
School administrators also briefed the board about the “hybrid” learning model at the junior/senior high school and the in-person elementary school program. Although most ACGC students are back in school at least two days per week, some students’ families have decided to keep their students in “distance learning” for the time being. Currently 29 K-4 students and 53 junior/senior high students are enrolled in the district’s distance learning options. In-class students who exhibit elevated temperatures or other signs of illness may be assigned to distance learning while quarantined.
When all enrollees (distance and in-person) are totaled, enrollment posted at 839 at the end of September, a decline of nine students from last spring’s enrollment of 848. (These numbers do not include those students whose families are “home schooling” them using non-district curriculum.)
Participation numbers in fall extra-curricular activities are similar to previous years, Activities Director Marj Maurer reported, except that total numbers in football (45) are down slightly from more than 50 in previous years. Extra sanitation and distancing measures are being taken.
Superintendent Nels Onstad and several board members praised the efforts of school staff (custodians, teachers, principals, kitchen and other support staff) in trying to meet the challenges of conducting school differently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It is a strain,” Onstad acknowledged. “We are trying to take what we learn and improve.” To date, daily student attendance is running around 95-97 percent.
Construction update
Virtually all facility renovations have been completed at the elementary building in Atwater, except for some issues with the security system and lighting. Work is still being finished on the administrative offices and on the exterior paneling of the junior/senior high in Grove City. Onstad expects everything to be completed within the next couple of weeks.
Other business
• In personnel matters, the board hired paraprofessional Kayla Denny and accepted the resignation of kitchen helper Alyssa Bergstrom.
• Vice Chair Megan Morrison reported that negotiations have begun with non-certified school staff contracts.
• Onstad indicated that the transfer of ownership of the Cosmos Learning Center from ACGC to the Southwest/West Central Service Cooperative is in the early stages of negotiation.
