By Ray King
As additional schools in Southeast Arkansas open their doors, superintendents are reporting that things appear to be going well for the most part while still working out the kinks between in-class and virtual learning.
Craig Dupuy who is the Superintendent of the Rison School District in Cleveland County said Wednesday that students in his district were given the option of how they wanted to learn.
Dupuy said the district has about 705 students and a majority of those who are taking classes online are in grades kindergarten to grade four.
Like the White Hall District, students who are taking classes online are not allowed to participate in extra-curricular activities, he said.
Dupuy appeared on the Oldies 101.3 morning show Wednesday and said that the district had about 50 students who were enrolled last year that the district has not heard from this year and there have been no requests for their records from another district. He said counselors in the district will be making contact with the parents of those students to find out where they are.
He also said the district has lost enrollment in the past few years and attributed part of that to the economy.
The Pine Bluff and Dollarway Districts also went back to class on Tuesday and Barbara Warren, who is the superintendent of both districts described the first day as “a great day.”
Warren said that about 71 percent of the students in the Pine Bluff District chose virtual learning and about 65 percent of the students in the Dollarway District also chose online learning.
Asked if there were any hitches with the technology needed for online instruction, Warren said it is “going to be a little slower,” adding that there were several families who were not able to access the platform and district officials will be working with them Wednesday.
