Charter schools go online, Coeur d’Alene schools practice ‘At Home Learning’

Students of two local charter schools are continuing their studies online at home as other area schools make preparations for home instruction following mass closures in response to coronavirus.

Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy began completely online instruction Monday. North Idaho STEM Charter Academy launched its remote learning Tuesday.

"Most of my assignments were already online, the only difference is photocopying my math assignments and sending those to my teacher,” North Idaho STEM sophomore Josh McKenna said during a phone conversation Tuesday morning. "It's not a huge shock. If I just work during the school day then I'll be fine. And I actually quite like this because I don't want my school year to be extended and I want to enjoy my summer break."

Josh and his peers have set up learning spaces using their home computers to attend virtual school using email and services such as Google Classroom, which streamlines file sharing between teachers and students. Teachers are uploading lectures, assigning participation in discussion forums or a bit of both.

"For science class, my teacher has the lecture recorded, and she has it posted on Google Classroom, and we take our notes in our notebook as normal and we can take a picture or scan it through Google Classroom," said North Idaho STEM sophomore Bronsen Fulk.

The students are encouraged to get up at the same time they normally would and follow a regular school schedule.

"It's been very seamless," Bronsen said. "At 8 o'clock my first period is a study hall. I was just doing the same work I would have done in my study hall."

Principal Scott Thomson said this kind of independent work really isn't a big transition for STEM's students.

"It’s not a huge stretch for us," he said. "We obviously can’t recreate the structure and quality of our classroom instruction online, but it's the next best thing. We’re trying to do the best we can in a bad situation."

For those who don't have internet access, STEM informed its families in an update that Spectrum is offering free internet access for households with students that do not have internet for 60 days. They can call 1-844-488-8395 for information. However, most phone plans have enough bandwidth to access STEM's online resources.

Coeur d'Alene Charter has been preparing for a couple weeks to take its instruction fully online.

"We're a day and a half in, but I think it's going really well," said Principal Dan Nicklay.

Charter teachers had plans ready Monday morning and engaged in discussions and workshops to help make it a smooth transition. They're also using Google Classroom as well as Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) to achieve learning goals.

"The main thing is to as closely as possible approximate what the kids do here," Nicklay said. "Our goal was to not interrupt their instruction."

He said the school is doing its best and everyone is glad to be online, adding that "it's a great time to be creative and versatile."

"Everyone seems to be excited to have the opportunity to show what they're made of," he said.

The Coeur d'Alene School District is offering "At Home Learning" resources for families at www.cdaschools.org that include a Portrait of a Graduate Challenge with grade- and content-specific challenges, encouragement for reading, writing, participating in physical activity and more tools for education as kids are not in class.

"Our school district is committed to providing academic support to our families and community during this challenging time," curriculum director Katie Graupman said. "We know that at-home learning will look and feel different from what students experience in school, and we want to provide materials and tools to help families navigate this transition. We have already begun planning for the collection and distribution of both online and hands-on resources for families."