School board talks digital snow days

Some schools around the country now hold digital learning days during snow days in the winter, and the North Iowa School Board discussed the topic at its February meeting last Tuesday.

North Iowa Supt. Cory Myer says the amount of work that kids would do on a digital day vary, and it wouldn’t equal that of a regular school day. He says digital days would not count toward the 1,080 required hours of instruction for the school year, but North Iowa already exceeds that count. Therefore, the school could hold digital days and not have to add some extra make up days at the end of the school year. Myer says a lot of school districts that have digital days will hold two or three of them during the year.

Myer explained that high school students would be able to use their school-issued laptops to go online and do work, while the younger kids would have packets sent home with them in advance for them to work on. Myer said he hasn’t talked to teachers about the idea yet, so there is still much to work out if they decide to move forward with the idea. Board members discussed the benefits of having kids be responsible for doing something on their own, even if it’s not as productive as a regular school day.

In other business, Myer said the school has had architects out to look at the 1964 building and come up with renovation plans, and he hopes to have bids in a month or so. Once they know how much that project will cost, he says the board can make plans for that and other projects using PPEL funds.

Read the full story in the February 28 edition.