Kearsley Community Schools to provide electronic devices for all students - MLive.com

GENESEE TOWNSHIP, MI-- Kearsley Community Schools is implementing a “1:1 Digital Learning Initiative” by providing an electronic device for every one of its students beginning next year.

Kearsley Superintendent Kevin Walworth said the initiative was started in light of the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on education.

“One thing that has been exposed in education with this pandemic is the digital divide that exists between districts of different socio-economic status,” Walworth said. “We know that in order to close that gap, we must start by putting learning devices in the hands of every single student from kindergarten through 12th grade.”

The initiative comes from the district’s Teaching and Learning Task Force, which was created as a response to the pandemic. The task force has been preparing for the possibility that the pandemic will continue into the fall and require the district to deliver instruction to students through “non-traditional” methods, Walworth said.

“Our hope is that our teachers and students will return to their classrooms in the fall but realize that we need to prepare for a multitude of different modes of delivering instruction,” Walworth said. “From teaching and learning in a mode similar to what we are doing right now during the stay-at-home order, to a modified schedule where students attend on different days to help promote social distancing and to help maintain a safe environment for our kids and teachers, we are currently developing several action plans.”

Exactly how the 1:1 initiative will play out depends on the pandemic and how the district will be able to proceed, Walworth said.

In the event that students have to learn from home in the fall, students in grades 3-12 will be issued a Chromebook while students in K-2 will be issued iPads.

When asked how the district plans to help students who do not have internet access, Walworth said they’ve been able to provide some homes with Wi-Fi hot-spots. The district is also currently providing internet access in some parking lots.

In the case that students can return to school in the fall either part-time or full-time, Walworth said the internet access issue could be mostly avoided by the kids being able to download everything onto their devices while at school.

“We do not have the answers to all the questions in terms of Wi-Fi access and will continue to solve these problems when the parameters are better defined for us from the Michigan Department of Education and the governor’s office,” Walworth said.