White Hall Superintendent Doug Dorris spoke on the Will and Greg show Thursday morning about sign ups for school choice within the White Hall school district. Dorris said there are more requests to attend school at White Hall than the district will be able to allow.
“Right now, we have a little over 100,” said Dorris. “Of course, we can’t take all of them depending on the grade level, but we have a little over 100 citizens who have signed up for school choice.”
Dorris said he has received requests from several areas of the Deltaplex for school choice.
“We have a few from Grant county, and of course most of them are coming in from within the county itself,” said Dorris. “Last year we ended up with over 180 that signed up. We couldn’t take them all. That is part of the state law that requires us to take 90 percent, so that is what we are working on right now.”
Dorris also spoke about the online schooling taking place since Governor Asa Hutchinson ordered in-person instruction to end due to the COVID-19 crisis.
“We sent out 10 day’s worth of packet work for the first 10 days,” said Dorris. “This week we started virtual school. That is putting a lot of stress on some of the teachers, parents, and students, too, but we feel like it is very successful. We are doing Zoom, we are doing virtual where the kids can call in, the parents can call in. Originally when this thing started out, we were going to have it from 8 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., but now it has changed up and basically the parent can send an email to the teacher at anytime during the day and the teacher will get back with them. This is some of the initiatives the Governor passed down to us this week. It is a constant learning curve for us right now, but I am so proud of the effort the teachers are putting in.”
Dorris said the school district is providing WIFI internet access at the school for students who may not have internet service at home.
“We passed out the password to the parents so that they can come up to the school buildings and they can actually use our WIFI,” said Dorris.
There are hard copies of the work that parents can pick up for their students if they don’t have internet access, or if they don’t like the online versions of the work that must be completed.
“Some of our parents don’t like that version of it, and we are still making the hard copies of it,” said Dorris. “All they have to do is call their principals office, and we will have a packet ready and will put it outside for the door and they can come pick it up.”
Dorris also stated that the district is still serving meals that students can come by the school to pick up during the day. Locations for pick up are located at Taylor Elementary and Hardin Elementary. An outreach is being completed in Redfield, at Jefferson Waterworks, and on Princeton Pike.
“We are still serving meals, breakfast and lunch at two of our locations,” said Dorris. “If a parent was to call and say ‘Hey, I can’t get to Taylor or Hardin’ they can just tell us what bus is being picked up where food is being distributed in their communities, and we will have it ready for them on the bus. Yesterday we gave out over 2,000 meals. This is for anyone with a child between the ages of 1 and 18. All they have to do is give us their name. We will put the child’s name down and give them their lunch and breakfast. All of our cafeteria workers deserve a big shout out because I can guarantee they are working their tails off to make all of this work.”
