Lyle Schools Offers Effective Hybrid Learning, and Safe, Effective In-Person Instruction

Throughout the Columbia Gorge and across the nation, schools are grappling with the best and safest way to deliver educational services during a global pandemic. Many education staples such as in-person classroom learning and meal services that have traditionally required face-to-face interaction were no longer permitted early in the pandemic due to concerns over COVID-19 transmission. Essentially, education transformed to remote learning overnight, something few schools were prepared for.

By the end of the summer, Washington’s Governor Inslee released a new framework for returning to in-person education, which allowed students and teachers to return to the classroom in small groups as long as COVID-19 remained low in the surrounding county. At that point, Klickitat County, whose population is under 25,000, had fewer than 200 recorded cases. The town of Lyle had a single recorded case, while Dallesport had seven, which were quickly contained.

To the Lyle School District reopening team, which included administrators, teachers and support staff, bringing back small groups of students that needed the most support with distance learning seemed a logical and important first step.

The team worked closely with the county health department, maintaining a laser focus on state-required safety precautions as it developed a plan for hybrid learning. This involved small groups of students rotating through the school building for in-person instruction on select days each week and participating in class remotely outside of those specific on-campus hours. Before classes started, parents and students came to the school for pre-arranged mini-conferences with their teachers. They checked out new laptops and learned how to log in and where to find their classes. The process for participating in class is the same each day, whether the student is in the school or at home.

The reopening team developed protocols for monitoring the health of students and staff for return to school, as well. Staff self-monitor and attest via a written form that they are well each day. Students arriving at school receive a quick health screening, including a temperature check. Safety protocols also emphasize mask-wearing, hand-washing and physical distancing throughout the day.

To support remote instruction, the district was able to purchase Smart Boards for every classroom in addition to the personal laptops, expenditures that were possible thanks to CARES Act funding. Teachers attended multiple days of training in using the devices, and continue to train in Microsoft Teams software and best practices in remote instruction.

Unlike larger districts with more staff, Lyle doesn’t have the option of assigning one grade-level teacher to remote learning and another to on-site instruction, because there is only one teacher per grade level at the elementary level, and one per subject at the secondary level. Lyle teachers stepped up to the challenge and agreed to simultaneously instruct students physically in their classroom and those logged in remotely.

“While our goal is to keep students and staff learning in person as much as possible, our team is prepared to transition to remote learning quickly, if needed.” Superintendent Ann Varkados explains. “Using technology like Microsoft Teams for simultaneous in-person and remote instruction allows for less disruption if we need to pivot to online learning.”

In fact, on September 14, 2020, less than a week after the start of the school year, Lyle School students and teachers proved that point by quickly moving to all-remote instruction when wildfire smoke led to a five-day halt to all in-person instruction in Klickitat County schools. By then, most students had at least one day of in-person instruction that involved logging in and using their devices. It was a crash course in live remote instruction, but by the end of the five days, teachers were expressing new-found confidence in their skills.

With the county’s COVID-19 infection rate now even lower than on the first day, the school is gradually increasing the number of days students can be in school. On Monday, October 5, all Kindergarten and first grade students – both exceptionally small classes of 7 or less -- returned to the building full time. Additional grade levels through middle school will be phased in, with students in grades 2-8 coming to the building at least twice a week.

At the high school level, students’ individual needs and learning styles are guiding decisions about who should receive more on-site instruction. Students who lack adequate Internet access are especially high priority for attending school in person.

Lyle Education Association Co-President Cody Magill is excited about the learning model, explaining, “The adoption of this program puts teachers in a position to be more flexible. We can more readily tailor our approach for each student, addressing individual gaps by accessing resources in a manner that promotes equity. It puts us at the forefront of education moving forward.”

Providing instruction under these circumstances, even in a small district, is not simple. Administrators in other districts have taken notice of what Lyle is doing. Principal Lori Smith recounts first hearing from a staff person whose spouse operates a daycare and sees first-hand how area districts are providing remote instruction. Lyle, she said, was “rocking it,” on par with another, much better-funded, Gorge-area school district. Since then, Principal Smith has heard other positive comments and even fielded calls from administrators in other districts, asking about the school’s approach.

Nevertheless, parents’ fears around the pandemic and in-person instruction have hit Lyle hard, something else it has in common with districts across the country. The absence of 25 students means a quarter-million dollar loss to the school’s operating budget. Staff are eager to get the word out that great things are happening in Lyle, in hopes of reassuring parents who have been hesitant to enroll students this year. That could include parents who have been trying to homeschool their students or who have enrolled them in the larger, less personal remote learning programs, or Kindergarten parents who simply decided to wait out the year. For families who want to continue learning remotely, the district will accommodate them through at least the end of this school year.

The school is also accepting out-of-district transfers for all grades. Out-of-district parents must take responsibility for transporting their children to and from school. Call 509-365-2211, extension 120, to learn more about enrolling.

“We can all agree that in-person is how kids learn best,” said Superintendent Ann Varkados. “I’m proud of our team for creating safe and sustainable practices for bringing kids back to school and encourage families to learn more about the good things happening at Lyle School District.”

Join us live and in-person in the Lyle School Cafeteria on Tuesday, October 13, at 5:30 p.m. to get that FAFSA application finalized. 

Sara Viemeister, who runs the Columbia Gorge Community College Financial Aid Office, will be available to help our seniors register for the FASFA. Sara provides assistance free of charge no matter what college or trade school the student is considering.

Sara has lots of information and understands the best way to get you the most funds for education! If this date and time absolutely does not work for you or if you have questions, contact Julie Larson at 509-365-2211 x126 or julie.larson@lyleschools.org

PLEASE BRING:

• A mask for each person (no exceptions!)
• A copy of 2019 tax returns (student's and parents')
• Social Security Number 
• Date of birth for student and parent and significant dates like marriage dates
• Your FSA ID (Save time by going to fsaid.ed.gov or downloading the MyStudentAid app and registering.  Then bring your assigned ID and password to FAFSA Night!)

DOWNLOADABLE FLYER

Dear Cougar Families,

We have some GREAT news to share! The Department of Health has given us the go-ahead to have more students at school as we move forward in October.

This is thanks to you and to our neighbors, who have been masking up, physical distancing, washing hands and keeping surfaces clean – all those safety measures that have helped keep the number of COVID-19 cases in our community, and in the county, low.

Assuming the county’s COVID-19 infection rate stays low, what you will see over the next couple of months is a gradual increase of students in the school, starting with our youngest learners. Health authorities suggest this approach, noting that younger children struggle most with distance learning, are at a critical stage in their development, and appear to have milder disease and transmit COVID-19 less.

Currently, our plan is that, beginning October 5:

• Kindergarten and first grade students will attend school in person and full time, and;
• All students in grades 2-8 will receive in-person instruction at least twice a week.

We will implement this plan gradually, one or two grades at a time with time in between, so that we can monitor and review any potential safety issues and adjust as we go.

In grades 9 through 12, we are taking a more individualized approach. We will increase numbers as we can, based on safety requirements and students’ individual learning styles. The cohorts your child/ren are currently part of will be maintained and expanded judiciously.

Also, don’t panic if you want your child to continue learning remotely.  Families who prefer to keep their students at home can do so, regardless of the child’s grade level.

There's more detail in the letter we're sending home with students today and next week. You can read it here, too.

 Candidates for Lyle School Board Opening Sought

Lyle Community Schools Board of Directors Member Nick Fitzsimmons has resigned his board appointment, effectively immediately. Chairperson Traci Waddington acknowledged the resignation at the September 24 regular board meeting and the board announced its intention to seek a replacement immediately.

Per board policy and procedure 1114, all citizens may nominate candidates for the position. Nominees must be registered voters and can reside anywhere within the Lyle School District limits, as this is one of two at-large positions on the board.  When a nomination is received, the district will reach out and invite the nominee to apply.

Candidates are welcome to self-nominate by applying on via the link below, or email deb.stenberg@lyleschools.org and provide the following information: First and last name; address (both street and mailing); telephone number; email address; and provide responses to these questions:

1. Are you a registered voter living within the school district boundaries?
2. Why are you interested in serving on the Lyle School Board?
3. Are there any obstacles that would prevent your from attending at least one monthly evening meeting and occasional special meetings, as needed?

The application deadline has been extended. Open until filled.

The board will interview the first round of applicants/nominees at the next regularly scheduled board meeting, Wednesday, October 28, at 6 p.m. Depending on the status of the governor’s orders regarding the open public meetings act provisions, the meeting may be held by Zoom.

Nomination/application form.

The remaining board members are charged with selecting an individual within 90 days to fill the seat through the remainder of its current term, which ends December 31, 2021.  Tria Bullard was elected to the position in November, 2013, and re-elected in 2017. She resigned in August of 2019 and, following a search for a replacement, the board selected Fitzsimmons. The appointee can file to run for a subsequent four-year term in the fall of 2021 if he or she chooses.

All Bus Routes Updated October 5

The easiest way to find bus routes on our webpage is by tapping on the bus routes icon on the main page, right under the large photo slider. Give it a try!

Current bus routes and bus stop times are on this page.  All routes have been updated and are effective October 5.  Be sure to check every day your child is scheduled to come to school, as the bus stops and times vary from day to day.

A note: there are always frequent changes to bus schedules at the beginning of the school year, as new students join the school; this year is even more likely to have changes because scheduling students to maintain the small numbers in the classrooms can be tricky.  More changes will be made as we bring additional numbers of students to school beginning October 5.

Read Superintendent Varkados' welcome back letter here.

Has your child stayed at home, even as schools re-started in September?  Did you try one of the on-line learning programs and come away a little disappointed?  Your child can start or restart with Lyle School District at any time.  Just contact us to get the process started. Email support@lyleschools.org or call 509-365-2211, extension 120.

We've been praised by other districts and education leaders for developing a flexible system and getting off to a solid start providing hybrid learning, with students attending approximately one day a week on-site and receiving instruction remotely the remainder of the time. Now we've been approved to bring more students to school, while we continue to comply with all safety requirements like physical distancing, wearing masks and practicing careful handwashing and cleaning/sanitation. (And of course, if you prefer to have your child participate in remote learning only, that's still perfectly fine!)

When you contact us, we'll schedule a time to pick up a laptop computer. Because of safety rules, we cannot work with you on a drop-in basis. Call 509-365-2211, extension 120 to schedule a time to come in.

If your child is going to ride the bus to school, you can go to our website and look up the schedule.

Some routes change daily. It’s important you get the right schedule for the day your child attends school. On our website, www.lyleschools.org, pull down just below the large photo slider and tap on the Bus Routes icon. You'll wind up here. https://lyleschools.org/District/Department/8-Transportation-Department/1206-2020-2021-Bus-Routes.html

Select the route and the day your child comes to school. Your child must get on at the stop closest to your house. He or she will not be allowed on at a different stop. For health and safety reasons, seats are assigned, children will load back to front, and will be seated well apart from one another. That's why they have to get on at the assigned bus stop.

If you are dropping off your child, please know that only staff and students may enter the building at this time.  

And remember to do a home health check each day your child is scheduled to come to school. First and foremost, look for signs of a fever – if your thermometer registers over 100.4 degrees, your child must stay home – no exceptions. Do not administer a fever reducer and send your child to school -- we will probably figure it out pretty quickly, and it will be a huge hassle for you and for us.

There are other symptoms of COVID-19 you should look for too – if you aren’t sure what to look for, go to the Health Page on our website.

We will do a health screening at the door as children arrive, and in the afternoon before they come home. Again - this is SO important - don't send your child if there is ANY sign of illness that may be COVID-19.

We love all of our kids, and want them to be able to attend school safely, and we want to keep school open even on this crazy, limited schedule. Help us do that, please.

One more change from last year – we will not be able to deliver meals, but we will provide meals for kids for their home instruction days. These packages can get pretty big, so sending them home on the bus with the younger students is probably not going to work out. We are asking parents to pick them up. Go to our School Meals page for more information.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: 8.25.20 Lyle Schools Will Make a "Soft Start" August 31 - September 4 

- Instruction will start on a small-group hybrid schedule Tuesday, September 8

-  Increased COVID activity requires smaller class sizes

- Teachers will conference with parents to provide training in the online technology families and students need for success 

The week of August 31 - September 4 is now a scheduled "soft start" for Lyle Schools. Our first week of school will now be dedicated to student/family conferences with teachers, during which you'll be able to check out a new laptop for each child and go through some training in the technology you and your kids will need to be able to use this year.  

This change is part of several adjustments we’ve made to reopen school with a hybrid on-site/remote learning schedule. Because of a revised recommendation from the health department, most students will attend on-site ONE day a week.

Classes will start on Tuesday, September 8
In order to set up our students and families for success, we strongly believe we need to make time for families to meet classroom teachers, pick up laptops (every student will receive a laptop from the district to ensure they are set up correctly to work with our technology), and to get a quick run-through on how to log in and join classes.

These meetings will look very similar to Parent/Teacher conferences and will allow the time needed for staff to ensure we are all ready to hit the ground running.

During the week of August 24 through 28, you will receive a call from the school to schedule your time to meet with staff. If you don’t receive a call by Thursday, August 27, please contact the school to set up your meeting. Call 509-365-2211, ext. 120.

In case you're wondering, the health department guidelines limiting the number of people in a room came into play in this decision, as well. Meeting times had to be spread throughout the entire week instead of consolidated into a more traditional open house.

If you haven't already heard, there have been several other last-minute changes in how school will start this year:

• Because of rising COVID-19 activity in the county, the health department has directed us to open with small groups only in the classroom. To meet these requirements, we are currently limited to five individuals per room.

• This means we’ll need to use every spare space in the school in order to meet that requirement. It also means we have to decrease the number of times a student can be at school each week – from two times to just one.

• This means our students will be using technology to participate in class REMOTELY four days a week.

These late changes have forced us to make course corrections when we would normally have our plans firmly locked in place. For this, we sincerely apologize.

As we gear up for the beginning of the school year, we must do what is best for all students, but especially those with the highest educational and support needs.

Our goal is to make the 2020-2021 school year as successful as possible, whether students are physically in the school classroom or learning at home. We are working closely with the Department of Health to safely resume instruction and learning during this extraordinary time.

Again, THANK YOU for your patience and for extending us grace as we navigate the way school will look like for next year.

If you have questions, feel free to email support@lyleschools.org or call the office. More background information is available here.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a noticeable impact on already limited food resources in Lyle and surrounding communities long before Klickitat County had its first case of the virus.

And the impact has been felt the greatest by the most vulnerable families.

Governor Inslee announced March 13 that all schools in the state would need to close by March 17 to help slow the spread of the virus. For students in low-income homes, two regular meals a day were suddenly taken off the table.

Within a week, the school district retooled its food service model and developed a plan for getting meals to children ages 0-18 despite the closure. Three buses, each manned by a driver and one or two paraeducators, covered the district’s transportation routes to deliver prepared meals to between 80 and 90 students.

Meanwhile, School Counselor Julie Larson heard reports of people laid off or dealing with reduced work hours. Local members of the Yakama Nation were already in crisis. In early March, the Lyle Longhouse -- a traditional building used for ceremony, social gatherings and, occasionally, temporary housing -- had burned to the ground. Several students and families lost their shelter and belongings, and the community lost its stores of salmon, meat, roots, berries and other traditional foods in the communal kitchen.

On the weekend before Spring Break, Larson learned that Lyle’s single market had announced it would be closing.

In that environment, administrators were uneasy about discontinuing student meals during Spring Break. But it was obvious the staff members who had taken on the bulk of the work needed the time off, to rest and make sure they and their families were ok.

Casting a Net

With an eye to the expanding needs in the community, Larson – who is also president of the Lyle Community Council – had already begun contacting a network of community organizations and volunteers to explore possibilities for distributing food in the school district’s service area during the week of Spring Break. She found considerable interest and willingness, along with some logistical obstacles to overcome.

A substantial cash donation was quickly secured from the Lyle Lions to allow the coalition to purchase food in bulk for distribution. However, after a couple of attempts, it quickly became obvious purchasing enough food items through grocery stores would be difficult, given the limits set on high-demand items to prevent hoarding. 

The volunteer group quickly organized a “flash” food drive over a five-day period, urging people to drive up and leave donations in a bin while maintaining physical distancing. With the governor’s stay-at-home order in place, donations were slow.

Things started to turn around when Larson called the local food bank, which is part of the Washington Action Program (WaGap) in Bingen. The organization allowed Larson to place a bulk food order at their discount rates, and then to pick it up at their location.

Larson also turned to Backpacks 4 Kids which, throughout the school year, provides weekend food to kids who may go hungry without it. Thanks to previously-established relationships, Backpacks 4 Kids volunteers, who wish to remain anonymous, were also able to make progress in purchasing food items, using funding from Insitu and United Way. Someone else found a discount style store willing to selling items in bulk and spent $200 out of pocket to make purchases for the food drive.

Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Superintendent Ann Varkados, was also working her connections.  A former employer and long-time friend, the owner of Hi-School Pharmacy, ordered food items to donate to the food drive. Dr. Varkados also personally made daily trips to a local supermarket, making several purchases of items like boxes of Cup of Noodles that were limited to one per day.

ESD 112 in Vancouver, which runs a courier to Gorge schools a couple of times a week, agreed to transport the food Dr. Varkados had gathered to Lyle.

Boots on the Ground

Larson and a group of over a dozen volunteers were meanwhile taking care of the logistics of organizing food drops. Phone calls were made to families who have been receiving student meals from the district to ask about additional needs. Unlike the district, the group could feed everyone in the family, not just youngsters. The entire extended family -- adult children, parents, grandparents and so on – were included in the total count in order to provide enough for all to have several meals.

Finally, on Thursday, April 2, volunteers gathered to pick up boxes and made it's first round of deliveries across the district, from Lyle to Dallesport and High Prairie to Appleton. As masked and gloved volunteers maintained ample physical distancing, Larson reminded them that the first was priority was safety, adding that families had been cooperative about giving school workers plenty of room on during district food drops.  “Place the box on the doorstep, then step back to allow them to pick it up,” she suggested.

At the bus yard in Lyle and the Dallesport airport, two major pick-up locations, parents -- who were expecting bags of sandwiches and snack items similar to what the district had provided -- received boxes with canned, boxed and fresh foods which had some real heft.

Some improvised, taking babies from strollers, then loading the strollers with the food. As volunteers handed out the boxes, passing drivers honked and waived, showing approval. The response of families and other recipients was deep gratitude, pure and simple.

At the end of the day, a total of 80 boxes were delivered to families, which included 98 children ranging from infants to 18-year-olds. Doorstep food deliveries were made to 18 elderly or otherwise vulnerable individuals in the community, as well as families who had significant needs.

Ongoing Needs Inspire Ongoing Effort

For the Lyle Community Council, community volunteers and Lyle Lions, this was the first step in a long-term collaboration to supplement the school district’s child feeding efforts. Community members quickly stepped up to contribute over $800 for additional food purchases.

The efforts of our community volunteers created a greater awareness of better food security in the Lyle School District boundaries, leading to the opening July 1 of the Good Food Pantry, a Washington Gorge Action Programs (WAGAP) food bank site in Lyle. Read more about the Good Food Pantry here.