Beaufort Co. K-8 teachers, students can’t log on until the first day of school. Why?
Thousands of Beaufort County kindergarten through eighth grade students won’t get logins to access their “virtual classrooms” until the first day of school Tuesday, a development that’s left one school board member “distressed” and others on the board with questions for the company providing the platform.
Teachers also won’t get their logins from K12 Learning Solutions - the company paid $2.75 million to create the platform - until Tuesday.
The delay has left School Board member Rachel Wisnefski “distressed” as both an official and a parent. At the Sept. 1 school board meeting, she asked if the timeline to log into classrooms was a part of the contract the board approved Aug. 4.
“It’s already stressful enough thinking about navigating this whole new world, and then getting a login. I can’t imagine what that would be like for our educators,” she said.
Mary Stratos, the district’s chief instructional services officer, said a timeline to deploy the virtual classrooms was not included in the contract.
She added that the district had been aware that students would receive login credentials on the first day of school for several weeks. But she said the district was only aware that teachers would receive credentials at the same time on Aug. 28, about a week and a half before the start of school.
“I’m not satisfied with the deployment date of September 8. I will share that,” Stratos said. “It has been a push and pull. It is not something that was contracted. It was not something that was defined for the point of clarification.”
“But I also recognize in order to deploy what should be a successful environment for our kids and our teachers, the engineering may take a little more time than was initially anticipated.”
Mike Kraft, the vice president of communications for K12 Learning Solutions, said Thursday the company has been in business for 20 years nationally and operates two entirely-virtual schools in South Carolina.
He said there was “no specific time frame” the company typically relies on to build virtual classrooms for a school district, but that the month turnaround for Beaufort County School District was “tight.”
“Obviously we’re working closely with the school district to make sure that we’re meeting the delivery timeline. We’re trying to be successful,” Kraft said.
The school board approved the $2.75 million, year-long contract with K12 Learning Solutions to be paid for with CARES Act dollars at its Aug. 4 meeting on a 9-0-1 vote. Tricia Fidrych was absent and William Smith abstained, saying he wasn’t able to read the contract before the vote.
Teachers began training on the platform with “demo” logins and classrooms on Aug. 24 after administrators and literacy and numeracy coaches trained other school staff.
The classrooms come with pre-written lessons and assignments that align with South Carolina’s education standards and have the ability for teachers to track their students’ progress.
Once teachers get their individual logins, they’ll have access to all their classrooms. Those classrooms will already have their students and curriculum in place, along with the option for teachers to add their own content and flexibility for honors classes or individual students.
Teachers will also be able to set up live meetings with students, allowing for both class-wide or small group discussions.
“If I’m (teaching) fifth grade, I’m getting all the content for (English language arts), math, science, social studies. All of the things that I need to teach, it’s already going to be frontloaded for them,” said Melissa Murray, the district’s director of literacy.
Stratos said Friday the district has received positive feedback from teachers during the training period, and added that the district has been able to provide course breakdowns, topics, and “electronic access to the majority of the texts” to district educators already.
Wisnefski moved Tuesday to amend the K12 Learning Solutions contract “to include deliverable and respective deadlines.”
The board approved her motion — which will require contract negotiations with the company and closed-door sessions to amend the contract — in a 6-4-1 vote.
This story was originally published September 7, 2020 at 6:00 AM.