At the special school board meeting on Tuesday, December 7, the school board decided to shift to distance learning from December 20-22 this month. Unlike districts that have announced plans to extend winter break, learning will continue in Roseville Area Schools on these days.

The three days before winter break will be distance-learning for RAHS with Monday, December 20 being a synchronous day. This day will also follow a typical Wednesday schedule, meaning that school will begin at 9:00 a.m. and each class will be 55 minutes long and end at 2:40 p.m.

The following two days on the 21st and 22nd will be asynchronous days. This allows students to work on school materials, assignments, and homework at their own time and pace. 

This new schedule was implemented in order to provide a 16-day break from in-person learning to interrupt COVID-19 transmission that is currently spreading throughout the Roseville community. Receiving vaccinations for COVID-19, staying home, and avoiding people with potential symptoms are some ways to stop or slow the increasing rates of community members with the virus. 

The district also communicated their expectations for teachers on each day of distance-learning. On December 20, teachers are expected to be online for the entire class period, chunking the teaching and learning throughout the period. Their sessions should be recorded and ideally any instructional videos should be less than 15 minutes. 

On both of the asynchronous days, teachers should provide extensions and/or re-teaching activities from prior learning. 

For all three days, teachers should not assign any new content or assessments. 

However, there may be loopholes and/or exceptions that some teachers may make to these rules. Attendance and engagement are expected for students during this new shift.