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The Edmond Board of Education Monday were updated about the school district’s plans for inclement weather and remote learning.
Superintendent Angela Grunewald outlined EPS’ plan for the winter season.
“We know that anything can happen and being ready for winter weather is something we are working on,” Grunewald said.“Dr. (Anthony) Rose and his group has made sure we have our remote learning guidelines up to date, and we’ll be sending those out with principals, and then getting those out to teachers just to make sure everyone is aware and can have sub plans ready, and to have remote learning plans ready.”
Grunewald said if EPS closes for inclement weather, the plan is going to remote learning.
“If we have to close for weather, it will be a remote learning day unless there is something like large areas of town without power where they wouldn’t be able to participate, and we would have to take that into consideration,” she said.
Grunewald said the school district would make a closure announcement as early as possible.
“I know that we made those decisions, parents are scrambling around trying to find childcare, teachers all of a sudden are starting to get their lessons done, so the more notice anyone can have, the better off we are,” she said.“We try to make those as possible at least the night before and not the morning of, even though there’s sometimes that just cannot be avoided.”
Grunewald said the school district looks at various things before deciding on school closure.
“There’s so many things that we have to consider when making those decisions,” she said.“We have a large part of our school district that is still considered rural. Buses that go on some dirt roads and places that we have to travel that you may have a clear road if you’re driving down Western, but if you’re driving somewhere in Logan County, it can look completely different. If you have ever been in a high school parking lot on a regular day, you do not want to think about when those high school parking lots are lined with more than a thousand 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds driving on ice.”
Grunewald said EPS has protocols in place for elementary students during cold weather.
“Elementary students will not go out for recess if there’s a wind chill below 32 degrees. That is the point where we keep them in,” she said. “That just helps parents know what kind of coat they need to have a coat for 33 degrees because if it is 33 degrees, they’re going outside. They need the fresh air; they need to run around.”
Grunewald said students sometimes leave their coats on the playground after playing outside, “With the weather like it is right now, it is cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon and our lost and founds are blowing over with coats because they need them in the morning and they go home in the afternoon and they forget them,” she said. “If you don’t know where your child’s coat is, you might want to check the lost and found at school because there’s a good chance that that’s where it could be.”
In other matters, the school board was updated by Anthony Rose, Executive Director of Educational Services, on how the school district is doing academically.
“Our academic indicator report is strong, (due to) our teachers, our administrators, students, families, support staff, this is a team effort,” he said.
Rose said EPS’ ACT trend data for the class of 2023 showed the school district’s ACT test score composite was down slightly at 20.9, but was still higher than the state average at 17.8 and compared nationally, at19.5.
“The national average did drop by 0.3, and that’s exactly what we dropped by was 0.3.,” Rose said.
Rose also commented on the EPS’ Advanced Placement testing.
“This is our seven- year tend,” he said. “We had a record number, well not a record number, but since Covid a record number of AP exams that were taken. You can see that our number of tests increased and our pass rate is still 73 percent. We are always excited to see how well our students are doing on their AP tests to get that college credit.”