South Dakota parents need to decide whether to send their kids back to the classroom this fall.
Many schools are starting up in the next few weeks after shutting down in April.
Some district officials say their back-to-school plans rely on a number of families choosing remote learning for their kids.
Valeriah Big Eagle isn’t sure what to do. She has three school-aged children; pre-school, elementary, and middle school.
Two attend in the Rapid City Area School district. She would like to send them back to class, but worries about the consequences.
“It’s like… well shoot – do I, you know—just as natives I’m seeing this for myself… I see how it’s impacting our native community more and I’m just afraid that my children will get sick,” Big Eagle says.
Big Eagle has another option for her kids. There’s a virtual learning program through the Oglala Lakota County School District. It emphasises cultural learning and the Lakota language.
“Having their cultural identity strengthened as they grow, but for native children and native people, we learn a different way,” Big Eagle says. “To be able to learn our culture and everything along the way would only benefit them in the long run.”
But there’s a catch… Big Eagle works full time. Her husband is a full-time student, and so far, his classes will take place in person. Neither one of them will be home during the day to help their kids.
“I’m really torn, of whether or not I send my kids to school and I risk them being exposed, I risk them to the coronavirus,” Big Eagle says. “Not only that they won’t have the opportunity for the virtual online learning system with Oglala Lakota County that will strengthen their cultural identity.”
So far, more than 1,300 families in the Rapid City Area School District will keep their kids home this year for virtual learning. That’s about ten percent of the district’s total enrollment.
Katy Urban is a spokeswoman for the district. She says they are by no means encouraging students to stay home, however, there is a silver lining. That will help create space in classrooms and hallways.
“Especially in some of our buildings that are older, it’s actually going to help us a lot in some cases, depending on the school,” Urban says. “If we are able to reduce our class sizes by a few, that’s going to help in terms of the 6 feet distancing.”
Urban says if families choose distance learning, they will have to complete the whole semester that way.
“We are already planning our staffing around that,” Urban says. “To change that because we have a lot of kids coming in or trying to go out would be really difficult on our system.”
Across the state in Sioux Falls, more than three thousand families will keep their kids at home this fall. That’s twelve percent of enrollment.
Dr. Jane Stavem is the superintendent of the Sioux Falls School district. She says that might be for any number of reasons.
“It might be a medical need that a child has where they don’t feel like it’s safe for them to be around large numbers,” Stavem says.”It might just be because people want to see if things get better or get worse and want to give it a semester of time.”
Rob Monson is executive director of School Administrator’s of South Dakota. “Just about every district in the state is trying to mitigate this coronavirus issue.”
Monson says schools are choosing a variety of instructional methods to prevent clusters of coronavirus among students and staff.
Monson says a lot of schools are opting for a hybrid model. That way students can attend class a few days a week and learn from home on the others. In some places, one day a week is dedicated for deep cleaning school buildings.
Monson says the hope is school will come back as normal as possible. He says many districts indicate they will be fluid about how much classroom instruction there is based on a county’s COVID caseload.
“School districts may have to change their minds in a matter of days, sometimes weeks, sometimes hourly, based on what’s happening in the community, in the county, in the district,” Monson says. “So, it’s just going to be everyone trying to understand your school boards, you school administrators, everyone are just trying to do what they can to keep everyone safe this year.”
As for Valeriah Big Eagle, she and her husband will send their kids back to school for the fall.
“After being in ceremony and praying and talking to my children and my husband, it’s like the choice we didn’t want to make, but we had to,” Big Eagle says. “Based off of being in school and having to work… we have to send our kids.”
Big Eagle says her employer will let her work from home on Fridays when Rapid City Schools are closed for cleaning.
She says a recent decision by the school board to require masks in district buildings makes her a little more comfortable with their choice.
Lee Strubinger is the policy and public policy reporter for SDPB News.
Support for education reporting on SDPB is provided by the South Dakota Department of Education
