School will start a little later, board decides

Students at Lake Roosevelt Schools will start school Sept. 8, six days later than an earlier plan, after the school board Aug. 12 pressed the administration to delay, fearing not enough time to orient staff, students and parents to the distance-learning plan, using Chromebooks and flash drives.

School board members at a special meeting urged Superintendent Paul Turner to allow more time for the training period. Board member Alex tufts said the earlier date “bugs the heck out of me” because he’s gotten input from community members, and he noted several comments in the chat feature on the Zoom meeting that night, attended by 39 people.

Other directors agreed when he moved to start the process of starting up school on Sept. 8, pushing the actual first day of online teaching to the 11th, but still with time to set up more home computers if needed. The parent-student-teacher conferences would go at least through the 10th for the orientation. That all needs to happen before Sept. 11, Turner said, because the school must take a student count Sept. 11 to report to the state, which is critical for funding.

The motion passed unanimously.

The board also pressed Turner to plan for any changes toward in-school classes to happen on a quarterly basis, not monthly.

Opening up classrooms will ultimately be controlled by county health authorities watching the progress in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic in Okanogan County.