With school facilities now set to remain closed until at least April 20, Powell schools will transition to remote learning beginning Monday.

“School will be in session for all 1,830 kids in their homes in various formats,” said Jay Curtis, superintendent of Park County School District No. 1. “Each kid will get it in the format that they can.”

As the district moves toward online instruction, Curtis said staffers will be making contact with all students and parents.

“This first week will include getting used to the technology and a new learning format,” Curtis wrote in a Thursday message to families and staff. “Students will not be graded on work but will receive feedback.”

Employees will be establishing online office hours and communication processes, he added.

In recent weeks, the district worked with local internet providers to ensure students have online access at home, but “if you live outside the city limits on certain roads, they can’t help you,” Curtis said.

“We still do have a number of kids that don’t have connectivity, that cannot get connectivity,” he said.

Remote learning won’t just occur online, but may be “via paper and pencil packet, via project, via telephone,” Curtis said.

Park 1 provides an electronic device for every student in the district, and schools handed out devices in plastic bags to parents/guardians last week.

Curtis said the district wants to make remote education meaningful for kids, and he’s encouraging educators to keep a few metrics in mind.

“Number one, we are going to have to be the picture of flexibility and individualized learning — to meet kids where they’re at,” Curtis told the school board last week.

It’s important to maintain relationships with students, Curtis said.

“All of our kids are in a state of trauma right now,” he said. “They’re not in school, and they’re being asked to learn different ways than they’ve ever been asked to learn. So we’re going to have to be mindful of that.”

Sometimes headway will be made inch by inch, rather than by leaps and bounds.

“We have a team in every school, our teachers are the best, I think, in the state and maybe even in the country, and they’re going to … make up the headway when we get them back [in the classroom],” Curtis said.

Right now, it’s about keeping students in an educational routine.

Powell students were beginning a week-long spring break on March 15, when Gov. Mark Gordon urged Wyoming schools to close through April 3 to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. On Friday, with the pandemic continuing, Gordon announced that school buildings across Wyoming must remain closed through Friday, April 17.

Powell school district officials had decided that any at-home schoolwork during the initial two-week closure would be optional, but encouraged. With the decision to close happening so quickly, Curtis had said it was not possible to set up all the necessary services for required school days — especially for students on an individualized education program (IEP), those who receive federal 504 accommodations, homeless students, English language learners and other kids who need special services.

However, the U.S. Department of Education started softening its requirements.

“This is a time for creativity and an opportunity to pursue as much flexibility as possible so that learning continues,” Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said in a March 21 statement, adding, “Nothing issued by this Department should in any way prevent any school from offering educational programs through distance instruction.”

The Wyoming Department of Education has said that districts must have an Adaptive Learning Plan in place by Monday.

As the Powell district prepares to offer remote education, Parkside Principal Jason Hillman said this is the most nervous he’s been about anything in his career as an educator. But he is hopeful that teaching remotely will work.

“I believe it will be effective,” Hillman said last week. “There are lots of unknowns when creating a curriculum plan in a very short amount of time that none of us as educators have previously tried.”

Hillman said the most difficult part is not being together as a school. The staff isn’t able to meet face-to-face, and in-person meetings have been limited to seven employees or fewer, while keeping 6 feet apart.

“We miss the students very much,” Hillman said, adding that teachers are reaching out and making contact with students and families often.