LU’s alumni keep kids learning during the pandemic
Barbara Ybarra
Associate Superintendent of Teaching and Learning
Bryan ISD Bryan, Texas
Bryan ISD, a district that generally serves a lower socioeconomic status demographic where a high percentage, 76% of the population, receive free and reduced lunch, had no learning management system in place when the pandemic hit.
The first week of the pandemic the district purchased Schoology, a program that automatically integrated with the district’s student information system. They trained more than 1,200 teachers in a 48-hour period and were completely launched and teaching students online within two weeks.
“We had been researching systems for several years and planned to bring the top companies back this spring for implementation in 18 months,” said Barbara Ybarra, associate superintendent of teaching and learning. “We got the system purchased within the first week and had it enrolling students by the second. Five weeks in, we have 93.5% of 16,000 students online.”
The district created a lead trainer program to train teachers district wide, all virtually, through Google Hangouts. Through slide deck and on demand video series, the teachers were fully immersed.
Teachers did incredibly great,” said Ybarra, who earned her doctorate in educational administration and leadership degree from LU in 2016. We said to the teachers, ‘this is what you’re faced with now, we’ve got to keep going.’ They actively rose to the occasion.”
The district did provide content for courses in a starter kit and provided a consistent structure for all classes, which Ybarra learned from her work at LU was essentially to helping parents and students navigate in the new online platform.
“First and foremost, I was a student in an online program, and I know what worked for me and really appreciated how courses were structured and the consistency from one course to the next,” said Ybarra. “One of the courses I took at LU was about developing online. I’m thankful I learned how to develop a quality online course that is easily accessible.”
Bryan ISD, like many schools, has a significant digital divide between students who have access at home and those who don’t. The district has distributed more than 5,000 Chromebooks to meet the students’ needs.
“First and foremost, I was a student in an online program, and I know what worked for me and really appreciated how courses were structured and the consistency from one course to the next,”
The district also made sure that every student including those with special needs were accommodated through the virtual learning platform. Special education courses are occurring on video conferencing and through teletherapy. Some online courses are modified for students with vision impairments and dyslexia but submitted with everyone else’s assignments and those students are included in discussion boards.
Bryan ISD’s pandemic experience is documented on Facebook at @bryanisd and Twitter @bryanisd.
“There are great stories and little wonderful moments, but what’s been the most wonderful, incredible thing to watch is what can happen when an entire team is completely behind getting kids what they need,” said Ybarra.