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Classes resume at Missoula County Public Schools online

Posted at 6:59 PM, Mar 30, 2020
and last updated 2020-03-30 20:59:51-04

MISSOULA — After two weeks off, Missoula County School students are back in class except now it’s online.

“We have specific lessons from individual teachers and from each school. It’s designed to be a review of content you did already in your class, or skills that you’ve already practiced," said MCPS Director of Communications, Hatton Littman.

She said she expects some hiccups, but praises teachers for their diligent work as they’ve come up to speed on teaching online.

Tools used will include reading articles and books, as well as opportunities for students to have face-to-face online meetings.

Littman said one thing that has been discussed from the time it was apparent that schools would move to online classes is how to make sure the needs of students without the means to buy their own laptops were met.

“We gave away hundreds of laptops on, we loaned out I should clarify hundreds of laptops. We also are pushing out physical paper packets, especially to our English language learners and our refugee communities,” Littman said.

Still some students are left without resources due to mandatory restrictions, leaving School administrators working on ways to get the necessary laptops and paper copies to all students.

According to Littman, “This is a complicated situation to respond to for all kinds of reasons. If we have to come up with ways to get laptops or get packets out to students, we know that that is covered under the essential services definition. We’re just still in the process of finding out who needs what resources and what is the best way to get it to them.”

With teachers expected to move into new material in the weeks to come, Littman said they know it is important to meet the needs of all students as quickly as possible.