LOCAL NEWS: Schools respond to COVID crisis
This week local schools will be doing more to respond to the coronavirus crisis including expanded meal programs, the start of childcare for essential workers, and a roll-out of at-home learning materials. Coast Community Radio’s Jacob Lewin has details:
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After an initial pre-spring break run of up to 360 breakfasts and lunches, Superintendent Craig Hoppes says Astoria schools are gearing up for double that number this week. Staff has been busy:
“ We reached out to our parents of all of our students, our teachers have, just to get some general information, check in on them, and a lot of our families are struggling right now with what’s going on, and we can provide these meals to them, it’s just helpful to them.”
The district will use all bus routes with meals being delivered three hours later than what had been pick-up times. Hoppes says childcare for children of essential workers should start this week on a limited basis:
“That child care is for health care workers and first responders, including the coast guard.”
He hopes to expand to other kinds of essential workers. Seaside Superintendent Sheila Roley says her district will also be expanding meal distribution using bus routes:
“We won’t be stopping at every single home, but we’ll be stopping frequently, so it’s just a short walk for each student.”
She expects distribution to double to up to 500 meals. Seaside also hopes to have childcare for first responders later this week. Both districts are also working on launching at-home learning modules both paper and online:
“We have already actively been using Google classroom with our students where we are able to see them face to face and we’re also able to have it as a format for including lessons in terms of information that can be sent to kids.”
Warrenton is trying to make sure all youths in that district have access to meals, and the district has posted suggestions for how to talk to kids about the virus recommending a limit on tv and internet news, coupled with explanations of what they are viewing, and saying younger children may need more attention and affection from you than normal.
For Coast Community Radio, I’m Jacob Lewin.