Paton-Churdan, like many other school districts, are discussing how to best address student learning come this fall.

Superintendent Kreg Lensch says due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the district has three separate plans for student learning. The preferred plan is having all students and teachers back into the school building in Churdan, with COVID-19 precautions in place such as recommending face masks and frequent handwashing. 

Lensch notes if the situation happens where all students have to do online learning from home, they have a plan for that, as well as a hybrid plan, which he explains what that would look like.

“Our hybrid model would be more towards making sure that our younger students are in the building. Our elementary kids that we feel like we can pretty easily social distance them and spread them out (and) use every inch of the inside and outside of our facilities to be able to bring our younger kids in and make sure they are getting the face-to-face instruction. Our hybrid model would include that and then probably would have our secondary kids doing most of their learning from home. And they would be the ones that maybe would rotate in or rotate out on an every other day basis.”

Lensch notes the hybrid would be their least preferred choice because it causes the greatest amount of stress for parents, as well as teachers.