About 10% of kindergartners through 12th-graders currently enrolled in Kalispell Public Schools have opted to learn remotely because of the COVID-19, pandemic according to the district.

That translates to roughly 600 K-12 students.

“Today, we focused on 269 high school students that had put in requests,” Kalispell Assistant Superintendent Callie Langohr said Tuesday, in addition to going over thousands of course requests to establish a high school master schedule.

Creating a master schedule is usually a 12-step process that takes about five months in a regular school year, Langohr said. This is not a typical school year.

“We are turning this process around in less than a week,” she said, noting it was only possible through the hard work and experience of staff involved. “We brought the right people to the table.”

The first day of school for remote learners is Sept. 8.

Forty high school courses will be offered through what is being called the Remote Education Center (REC). There will also be additional independent study/correspondence and concurrent enrollment courses offered through BYU Independent Study and Flathead Valley Community College’s Running Start program.

“The reason we’re doing that is we aren’t going to have the capacity to offer all the courses that we want and we truly want our students going into remote education to be able to take almost as close to their original schedule as possible,” Langohr said.

Some courses will only be available by attending school on-site. This includes music, International Baccalaureate and vocational/agriculture classes.

In regard to instruction, Langohr said five teachers requested to teach remotely full-time.

“We honored all those requests,” she said. “It ended up that we needed those subject areas so it was perfect, so I’m really excited we were able to support those teachers.”

“We will have approximately six teachers at the high school level that will teach a section or two remotely during their day,” Langohr said adding that some teachers will need to be hired.

The remainder of this week will be spent working on scheduling at the elementary and middle school level.

“We’ll be meeting with the K through 12 cadre of teachers on Aug. 26 to develop expectations,” Langohr said.

Even if students are attending class on-site, the district has set a goal for everyone to have an understanding of “how to do school remotely” by Sept. 11. Thereafter, the expectation is that teachers and students will “practice” remote learning through some kind of simulation.

“The reason for that is if, say a school is closed, or the whole school district is closed, everyone [is] going remote, we’re not going to miss a beat. There’s no scramble here,” Langohr said, “We have learned a lot since last spring.

“We’re going to get this. We’re going to do it,” she said with confidence.

If successful, the Remote Education Center model could have a lasting impact on education delivery, particularly during emergency closures or weather-related cancellations.

“Another piece of this that is a huge benefit is that if we have a snow day, and in the past, if we had a snow day we closed school and had to make it up in June — we don’t have to do that. We can have a snow day and we just go remote,” she said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or [email protected].