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JERSEY SHORE -- Teachers at the Jersey Shore Area School District have been formulating plans on how to bridge the gap created by school closures when students return in the fall, according to Dr. Ken Dady, assistant superintendent at the district.
Speaking to board members at their meeting held virtually Monday, Dady said the teachers have held or are holding virtual discussions with teachers in the next grade level in order to determine what to do with students when they come back to school.
Detailing the process, Dady said teachers are looking at what materials didn't students get in the fourth marking period and bridging that to what are the essential skills and standards they normally would have coming back to the next grade level.
"It's not necessarily that they're going to get all that material in the first marking period," he said.
He noted that for example with math, which is a spiraling curriculum, some of the material the students missed in the fourth marking period this year will not be covered entirely in the first marking period in the fall.
"Other aspects of it could be hit later in the second or third marking period. That's when they would fill in the gaps there," he said.
"So, whenever it tends to hit their part of the curriculum at the next grade level, the gaps would be filled at that point," he added.
Dady also stated that the only elementary students who would be detained at the end of the current school year are those students where conversations were already occurring before the COVID-19 leave began.
"Those families would have been well aware prior to the closure of schools," he said.
At the middle school level, the district will utilize the Bulldog Academy to try to help any students who had been having difficulties before the closure.
Students at the high school level will receive a grade based on the third marking period. If a student was not passing at that point, Dady said that the district would look at the fourth marking period to determine if it was mathematically possible for the student to receive a passing grade. If it's not, then students will be contacted about credit recovery during the summer.
Dady told the board that the district has been in contact with other districts in the area to see how they are handling graduation this year.
"The general consensus is that depending on the restrictions and the plans that the governor has and depending on what they are, there is a strong desire to hold graduation to the date that it is and implement some social distancing aspects," Dady said.
Noting that the governor, as of now, has set May 8 for lifting some restrictions in some areas.
"What we are going to do is; we would like to hear what the timing of his plan is, so that we can make a decision and announce it on the May 11 meeting," he said.
He added that would give the district time to see if graduation needs to be delayed or whether they hold a virtual graduation first, followed by a physical graduation at a later day.
"There also seems to be a general consensus that we would like to have a physical graduation at some point, even if it's later in the summer," Dady stressed.