VIENNA — The administrators of the Maries R-1 School District are putting together a survey to obtain input from parents of its students asking their personal opinions about whether to have a seated or virtual 2020-2021 school year.

The Covid-19 coronavirus that disrupted the fourth quarter of the 2019-2020 school year is still among us and must be taken into consideration as the administration and school board make decisions and plans for the upcoming school year.

At the school board’s recent reorganizational meeting, Superintendent Mark Parker said plans currently are underway about opening the school for classes in August. He’s been talking to administrators from other school districts as they move forward with making a decision to hold a seated school year, virtual, or make plans for both. Parker wants to survey parents, but this is challenging as well because the school district needs to reach the parents of 420 students, yet has only 165 email addresses. They want to hear from parents on how they feel about sending their children to school in August.

Board President Vicki Bade said other school districts have contingency plans and situational plans, such as if they have two cases, three cases of the virus, they make plans for what the school will do. Parker said he’s not seen those plans but has seen capacity plans that have 50 to 25 percent of the students come some days and stay home on other days when another group of students comes to school. It could be half of the students coming to school every other day. This would double the bus routes, however, and also impact working parents. Board member Dave Long said he’s heard about school during the day and school at night.

Parker said the school has the supplies to take temperatures. Other safety measures include lessening the traffic into the building and using different doors. Bade commented there are so many unknowns, saying no student has been in a classroom since Maries R-1 closed in March. Parker said that’s why he wants to do the survey. He needs to know, “If we do this, how likely are they to come” to school. Some parents may not want to send their children to a seated school year.

Board Vice President Penny Schoene said she thinks they should let the parents choose virtual school if they want.

Board member Mike Kleffner said he’s heard from families who say their students are not able to log on to Launch, the virtual school through the Springfield Public School District Maries R-1 is using. Parker said they have to think about using it if they go virtual. Some school families may only have one computer and multiple students or a parent working from home using the computer. There could be multiple computers in a home and not enough broadband width if several people were online at the same time. He said they talked about establishing hot spots with school buses but it has to be outside and it won’t work in every area. The infrastructure for reliable internet is not available in all areas of the district and virtual school may not be possible for some students. The state calls it the “digital divide” in internet accessibility in rural versus urban areas.

Schoene said they can have seated school and give options to have virtual schooling as well. In school, they can schedule a time to wash hands, and when they go to their specials classes, clean the desks. Each night they will have to be cleaned. They can look into getting sanitization machines.

Parker said he plans to send out the survey to parents in July to get parent input. He thinks the parents will want to send heir kids to school now. Kleffner said, “It’s costing our kids education.”

Bade asked if students have “dropped Launch.” Parker said the problems began with login issues and they tried to resolve it. Bade said if students are dropping it, they need to find out why. Parker said it was the login that caused problems and possibly the system was inundated with the large number of students trying to use it. Board member Cindy Petershagen said if the district’s students were not able to use the Launch virtual learning, Maries R-1 should get its money back. Kleffner said he’s heard nothing good about Launch. “We’ve got time to see if there are spikes” (in the virus) and if they don’t have issues, he thinks school should start in August like always.