Fulton County Schools prepare to close for two weeks with Non-Traditional Instruction

Fulton County Board of Education met in an Emergency meeting March 12, at 6 p.m., to approve Non-Traditional Instruction Days for the local school system, with Board members Barry Patrick, Perry Turner, Kimberly Hager and Superintendent Aaron Collins attending.

The meeting followed Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear asking the School Superintendents in the state to be prepared to close school for a least one week, or longer, beginning March 16.

Fulton County Board members voted to close school for two weeks, beginning March 16 as a Professional Development (PD) day, March 17 through 20 at Non-Traditional Instruction (NTI) days; and March 23 as a PD day and March 24 through 27 as NTI days.

Breakfast and lunches will be distributed to students during the two weeks school in not in session.

The Board will meet March 19, at 6 p.m., in regular session to discuss and decide about any further days that may be needed to dismiss classes.

Supt. Collins reported, “The buses were disinfected with Clorox and sprayed down today and classrooms were also disinfected and will continue to be while school is dismissed.”

Supt. Collins presented the Board members with an Emergency Application for Non-traditional Instruction Program (NTI) for review.

The application outlined how the district will deliver instruction on NTI days; account for all students’ access to online resources and/or equitable instructional materials for the students who do not have access to the internet and/or devices and for students who may need to access information differently; what the district will do to ensure a continuation of learning from regular student attendance days on NTI days; how information on student participation will be gathered on NTI days; and how information on staff participation will be gathered on NTI days.

Fulton County Schools will continue to focus on communication with all stake-holders during planning and implementation of the NTI program. There will be grade level links with an assignment matrix and grade level website links on the Fulton County Schools website at 222.fulton.kyschools.us. Teachers will contact parents/students during a set time of 9 – 11 a.m. and 1 – 3 p.m., to discuss daily assignments and progress through Remind 101, email, text, telephone, Google Hangouts, etc.

A plan is created in such a way that if there is no access to the internet, students will have directions and contact with teachers on NTI days. And families will have at home assignments and resources. Written “packets” and work will focus on coursework related to current standards for the students in each course or subject/grade level. Teachers will attempt to keep in contact with students by various means including phone, website, email, Skype and Google classroom.

NTI days will enable students to maintain continuous classroom instruction. Online assignments will be monitored for proficient completion. Project based learning assignments will use a rubric to grade, with many of the online systems that are being implemented in Fulton County Schools having a progress monitoring component.

School administrators and teachers can view access logs for instructional time on various online platforms. Teachers will make notes when contacting students/families on Project Based Learning progress.

Teachers and classroom aides will collaborate and be responsible for interacting by phone or electronically with students and parents to the greatest extent possible. Staff communication with students through emails, Remind 101, or other similar electronic resources will be monitored on NTI days as a means to verify instruction by teaches keeping a record of this information on an Excel spreadsheet.