The Aberdeen School District will form a task force made up of representatives from each school, community members and public health officials to form a plan for how school will be conducted in the fall, Superintendent Alisha Henderson told the school board this week.

The decision will be made locally, Henderson said, although the state is expected to provide recommendations and guidelines statewide as early as Monday.

“They will not say that any particular school district has to do a certain thing, we will have to make the final decision,” she said. “And will need wide stakeholder input. We will convene a task force next week, a large group. This is going to be locally determined. She said the task force will meet weekly through July with the hope of a tentative plan by June 25 and the understanding that “we be ready to reposition ourselves” later in the summer.

She said there are “so many factors, with public health as the over arching framework.” The question is,”how do we meet the needs of our students, and support students and staff with the public health requirement so everybody is safe and well.”

Sports

Henderson said schools are also waiting for decisions from the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association regarding fall sports.

Canvas software

The district has purchased a widely used remote learning software system called Canvas, which is the same one used at Grays Harbor College. There will be money available for teacher training this summer.

It will be an advantage to have a common learning platform, she said. In the past, different schools have used different platforms, meaning parents might have to be familiar with more than one to help their students.

“The staff has stepped up overnight to transition from the traditional model to the distance learning model, and expectation to do it over night, which was crazy,” Henderson said. “With Canvas, it’s a steep climb for folks who have not known that system, but the staff is stepping up and I’m confident we will be ready in the fall.”