Mt. Pleasant serving 148 students through remote learning

MT. PLEASANT - The Mt. Pleasant Community School District continues to research and explore different remote learning options.

The district's Board of Education received an update on the district's online learning program at their regular meeting on Monday.

Curriculum director Kathleen Gavin said there are currently 148 students within the district who are learning remotely: 66 kindergarten through fifth grade students, 31 middle schoolers and 51 high school students.

Gavin noted the program had a drop of eight students since the previous Monday and said many of the eight students returning to in-person learning are 'parent requests” as families have felt more comfortable with the level of community spread or felt their student needed more social connection.

Gavin added the fluctuation of students is happening across grade levels but the biggest influx was with high school students, specifically those in the 12th grade, which included cases of documented fragile health of the student or someone in their home.

The curriculum director said the district continues to meet with elementary school teachers who are delivering the online curriculum as well as the tech advisers at the secondary grade levels to provide support and problem solve common issues the teachers may be facing.

Gavin added she has spoken to several third party vendors providing online instruction to explore potential 'long term or short term solutions,” as an option to support teachers and families. The curriculum director said the vendors offer different levels of support ranging from providing a teacher, providing only curriculum or providing only professional development for district teachers.

Currently, the district has several teachers designated to teach district provided curriculum to elementary students. Middle school and high school students work with subject teachers through online platform Canvas as well as a designated tech adviser.

Board member Josh Maher said he continues to hear feedback from teachers and families about wanting to see improvements to the program.

'Students are coming back behind … the teachers are stressed out working far too much and it's just not working for anybody. To find a better solution as fast as we can, I feel that would be pretty important,” he said.

Board President Jennifer Crull added she has heard only positive feedback and asked

During the meeting, district director of business and finance Ed Chabal reviewed the FY20 financial report. Chabal pointed to the unassigned fund balance, money that was 'just sitting there in the bank,” and unspent, which showed the district had close to $2.3 million at the end of the year, a $954,000 increase from FY19.

Chabal also pointed to the district's solvency ratio, calculated by taking the unassigned fund balance divided by the district's revenues. Currently, Mt. Pleasant's solvency ratio is close to 10 percent, which hit's the board's policy's goal of 7 to 12 percent.

Chabal also gave a report on the special education supplement fund. The district's year-end balance was a debt of $320,425, for which the board approved modified allowable growth for the deficit.

The director of business and finance also discussed funding the district had received specifically for things related to the pandemic. From the federal government, Mt. Pleasant received $316,000 in March. $110,000 carried over to the new fiscal year. When asked if the remaining funds would be sufficient, Chabal said it 'probably is not going to be enough.”

Chabal said the district will be using the remaining funds to purchase hot spots and other technology related items to aid in remote learning as well as costs for extra cleaning supplies such as disinfectant.