Anchorage (Alaska) district will begin school year with online-only instruction

The Anchorage (Alaska) School District has announced that the coming school year will not begin with in-person classes and will instead begin with online-only learning.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that rising coronavirus case numbers in Anchorage have led to a “high-risk scenario” for school operations, Superintendent Deena Bishop says.

The district is using the average daily new coronavirus case count over a 14-day period to assess that risk. On Friday, that jumped to an average of 30 new cases a day, Bishop says. 

The school year is scheduled to start on Aug. 20.

The revised plan is a reversal from what the district announced early this month. Previously, officials said schools would hold in-person classes in small groups two days a week in August, and soon after switch to in-person classes five days a week in September.

“Our goal is to get back to in-person school as soon as possible — when it is safe to do so for our students and staff,” Bishop says.

When the school year begins, online learning will take place five days a week. As long as the city does not go back into a “hunker-down” phase, teachers and staff will work from school buildings, Bishop says.

The Anchorage school board has approved the purchase of enough devices so that every child in grades three through 12 has a school-issued Chromebook laptop. The district also will spend money to support Wi-Fi access for families, Bishop says.