School district’s distance learning plan is inadequate

The decision to close Anchorage schools for the first quarter of this year has been made by the Anchorage School District administration. The district administration and employees have faced tremendous challenges dealing with this pandemic and deserve a lot of credit for their efforts. On Aug. 18, the administration will ask the Anchorage School Board to approve its school start plan. They did not advise the School Board of key details of the plan until the Aug. 4 meeting, about two weeks before school starting. The administration explained they had been trying to work out the details with teachers.

Although as a School Board member, I recognize it is now too late to change going to distance learning for the first quarter, both as a parent and board member, it is clear that other important concerns with the plan exist. First of these is only requiring teachers to provide a minimum of 30 minutes of math and 30 minutes of English direct internet instruction to their students four days per week. That is only four hours a week of direct teacher instruction to their students. How is that “best practices” and what is best for our students?

Students in Alaska already get the fewest instructional hours over their K-12 years of any state in the nation. That is because state law provides a unique combination of the shortest minimum school year and shortest school day. Estimates are that Alaska students receive as much as a year and a half less instructional time during their K-12 education as students in some other states. This has been one explanation for how poorly our statewide student testing results in math and English proficiency have become. They are among the worst or the worst in the nation.

Many experts have concluded that K-12 students denied in-person instruction will lose out on essential educational, economic, social and developmental benefits. Anchorage children will not only not have in-person instruction this quarter, under the plan now proposed they will be ensured only four hours per week of direct internet instruction by their teachers. The administration owes our community a clear, convincing, fact-based explanation of why only four hours per week of direct internet teacher instruction is the appropriate minimum for our students.

To be clear, the administration has advised that it expects teachers to provide additional direct instruction, whether to the whole class, small groups or individual students. The administration has told the board they will “hold teachers accountable” for doing more than this minimum. But the administration has refused to set any measurable minimums for such additional teaching duties. Administrators say they will know if a teacher is not doing enough and will do something about it. But that certainly was not true this spring when schools closed. Will the administration commit to do what is necessary to ensure no classrooms are left behind this first quarter and not wait until it is too late for those students?

For the past five months, the administration refused my repeated public requests to set some minimum level of instruction expectation, and last spring, many of our students and families suffered for that. Imagine my surprise when after being told all summer, “we are working on it,” that last week, the administration for the first time announced the four-hour-per-week minimum.

At the Aug. 4 School Board meeting, I asked why not have more instruction time at least for older students. Many experts advise there is a clear distinction between elementary and high school students when it comes to being able to succeed with longer distance learning instruction time. But there was no explanation of why the plan has no distinction between minimum instructional time teaching high schoolers versus elementary students.

I asked why not establish at least two hours a day minimum direct instruction without any meaningful response. When to teach such additional instruction could be flexible to allow the timing to be the best for teachers, students and parents. There has been no explanation of why a minimum of only four hours per week of direct teacher instruction is the right thing to do for our students. I hope our community will get that answer at the Aug. 18 meeting.

Anyone can arrange to testify at the August 18 Anchorage School Board meeting by emailing SchoolBoard@asdk12.org by 2 p.m. the day of the meeting. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. and will be viewable on the ASD YouTube channel at https://www.asdk12.org/schoolboard, as School Board meetings are no longer televised.

Dave Donley is a member of the Anchorage School Board, deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of Administration, and parent. This piece does not represent the position of the Anchorage School Board or the Anchorage School District.

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