Penns Valley Area School District creates new online option as part of reopening plans
Penns Valley Area School District families will select between in-person classes and online learning before returning to school next month.
Over several weeks, nine committees worked to develop the Penns Valley health and safety plan for the 2020-21 school year — taking into account staff and parent concerns and guidance from health professionals. The plan was adopted at last week’s board of directors meeting and includes learning policies for each phase of Gov. Tom Wolf’s reopening plan.
“This plan was developed in consultation with health professionals, and it was also developed in consultation with subcontractors and educators,” Superintendent Brian Griffith said in a video to district families.
If Centre County remains in the “green” and least restrictive mitigation phase, Penns Valley will offer in-person programming.
“We will be implementing social distancing and masking protocols,” Griffith wrote in a letter to parents. “Students will be expected to wear masks in environments where they cannot maintain a distance of 6-feet from another person.”
The district will also provide explicit guidelines for hand-washing.
If a student is not comfortable attending school in person, Penns Valley has outlined two options: PV Rams Online and PV Cyber Academy.
PV Rams is a new virtual learning platform with instruction delivered by district teachers and staff. It resembles a normal school day and includes a schedule, real-time and synchronous learning.
“The goals for this program are to create an interactive, engaging and motivational experience for our students,” Griffith wrote. “PV Rams Online provides for a seamless transition between in-person and online environments.”
Students will also have the option to use this platform in the event that they are sick or quarantined during the year.
The cyber academy allows students to work on their own time and pace. The course content is developed to meet state education standards.
In the yellow phase of reopening, Penns Valley will operate in-person programming two days per week. The schedule will reduce the number of students in the building and on transportation by 50%.
Students will be assigned in-person instruction days on Monday and Tuesday or Thursday and Friday. Wednesday will be used to clean all school facilities.
When not in school, students will receive instruction on PV Rams Online. In both the green and yellow phases, school facilities will be open for broadband access.
If Centre County shifts to the red phase, all learning will be conducted online, and no buildings will be accessible.
“As always, we appreciate your support as we strive to uphold our tradition of excellence in education, and we look forward to continuing with our mission of ‘Empowering our students every day to reach individual success,’” Griffith wrote.
The first day of classes will be Aug. 25.
Each school entity in Pennsylvania is required to submit its Health and Safety Plan to the state Department of Education prior to the reopening of schools. As of Monday, Penns Valley Area and State College Area school districts, Central Intermediate Unit 10 and Nittany Valley Charter School have submitted their plans to the PDE.
