Oak Creek-Franklin Schools Pivot Back To All Virtual Ed
OAK CREEK, WI—Starting Monday all instruction will pivot back to remote learning (Phase I) and will continue in this remote format until the Disease Burden falls back below 350, and continues on that downward trend for a subsequent week.
Friday, October 15, was the last day of hybrid instruction for a period of time.
The Oak Creek-Franklin School Board met Thursday to discuss the continued impact of coronavirus on schools as cases continue to climb.
The most recent Medical College of Wisconsin Epidemiology Team release of the City of Oak Creek’s COVID-19 Disease Burden is 430. This number reflects a rating of “Critical", according to a statement from the school district.
After an extended discussion the Board voted to affirm their prior position and roll back to Phase II until the cases decrease.
Parents had a variety of viewpoints of how the school district should respond to the increase of coronavirus cases.
Many parents shared their thoughts with the board Thursday.
One parent asked the board not to “move the goal post”.
Another parent said he only agreed to send his child to school because of the plans to roll back if cases spikes, set out at the beginning of the school year. He asked the district not to change the plan now.
Minimally, this rollback will be effective for two or three weeks, according to the school district.
All students should engage in remote learning as they had prior to our entry into Phase II on September 28.
The decision wasn’t what some wanted to hear.
One mom told the board Thursday she liked the idea of sending her child to school and she saw the benefits of in-person education on a limited basis.
“We must learn to live with the virus,” she added.
Another mom was in tears, and she said she feels stronger than ever that her kids needed to be in school and appreciated what the district was doing to have kids in class.
Families may receive additional communications from multiple District sources around a variety of topics.
In a series of unanimous votes throughout the summer, the Board voted to follow “Disease Burden,” as the key data point for determining each phase of instruction.
“We are seeing schools temporarily adjust their format as COVID continues to spread. We had hoped that our late summer experience reflected that we had experienced our peak in local cases, however, Oak Creek/Franklin is once again seeing COVID cases rise. We will continue to monitor the data identified on our Dashboard, and methodically move toward Phase II, as the criteria allow,” a statement from the school district read.
If your child is in OC Virtual, for either the semester or the year, you are unaffected by this update.
This article originally appeared on the Oak Creek Patch
