Our View: Schools are all ears, let them hear you

Now that individual school districts are making the decisions on opening this fall, we encourage parents to communicate with school officials across the county to make sure their voices are heard.

One easy way to do that is by filling out the school surveys that each school has asked district families to complete.

Cloquet schools set up a survey that parents should take, either by phone or on the school’s website, to let their preferences for their children be known. Parents should complete the survey for each child of school age. Today (Friday, Aug. 7) is the last day you can participate in the Cloquet survey.

The survey asks if parents will send their children to school if they open with students attending in-person or under a hybrid model (a mix of in-person and online classes) or if they prefer their children attend school under a distance learning model, similar to how the school year ended last year. It also asks if you have high-speed internet access, and whether you would use the bus system to get your child to school. The survey is not anonymous: you must enter your name and your child’s name, grade, and school.

The surveys are advisory, and will help the various school districts plan for the fall. Cloquet superintendent Michael Cary said Tuesday night that with 967 responses (out of about 2,600 possible), almost 78 percent of families said they would send their kids if school starts in-person in September, versus 22 percent who said they would not. Of those, 95 percent said they would use the school-provided distance learning. When asked about a hybrid model, where kids spend some days in school and more days at home doing distance learning, 86 percent said they would send their children to school and 14 percent said no, they would stick to distance learning.

Cary said parents can change their minds at any time during the school year about keeping children home or sending them to school. However, having an idea of how many students will be in the classrooms, versus online, will help them plan which teachers will be at school and who will teach online. Similarly, if they know families will be driving kids to school instead of putting them on a bus, they can better plan bus routes.

So, help your local school district. Check your email inbox and fill out that survey or call the district and ask how you can participate.

And, as we head into another strange school year, be patient, but communicate, respectfully. Keep your kids home if there’s any chance they might be sick. These are uncharted territories. We are all learning and people are doing the best they can in all our area school districts.