Bend-La Pine Schools, Central Oregon’s largest school district, hasn’t revealed details of its plan to educate students remotely while public schools stay closed through at least April 28 to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The school district will start at-home learning for its nearly 18,650 students by April 1, but it won’t inform families how that will look until Friday at the earliest, and possibly early next week, said Superintendent Shay Mikalson.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Mikalson said. “We’ll describe what (the learning plans) look like shortly.”

Redmond School District and Jefferson County School District were also still working on their plans for remote education as of Wednesday afternoon. Those two districts serve a combined 10,362 students.

Redmond School District staff will work through next week — which was originally spring break — to create a remote learning plan by April 1, said Superintendent Mike McIntosh.

Most students won’t have traditional graded assignments, with the exception of high school students who need credits so their transcripts don’t have holes in them, he said.

“We’re concerned for high school seniors; they’re going to want to graduate,” McIntosh said. “We want to make sure they’ll be eligible to do that.”

Like Redmond and Bend-La Pine, Jefferson County School District’s leaders also expect to have a plan in place for students by April 1, although Superintendent Ken Parshall didn’t have any details Wednesday.

“We are confident we can provide effective learning experiences for our students after Spring Break,” Parshall wrote in an email.

According to Gov. Kate Brown’s executive order Tuesday, all school districts must continue to pay staff and provide free meals to students during the closure. School districts must also provide child care for parents or guardians with certain jobs, such as first responders, emergency workers and health care professionals, the executive order stated.

Here is a rundown of every other Central Oregon school district’s plan, some more detailed than others, to educate students remotely.

Crook County

Crook County School District, which serves more than 3,000 students, is planning on using the internet to keep educating its students.

Each high school student already has a Chromebook — a laptop that runs Google’s Chrome operating system — at home, said Superintendent Sara Johnson. Chromebooks, as well as iPads for kindergartners, will be sent to younger students districtwide using school buses, along with novels or paper packets of school work, she said.

The school district also recently spent about $50,000 on a new K-8 online curriculum called Imagine Learning in response to the closure, according to Johnson.

Crook County administrators are talking with local internet providers to help households that don’t have internet access, Johnson said.

“Not having internet cannot be a barrier for kids,” she said. “Whatever kids need to continue their learning, we’re going to make it happen.”

Johnson added that Crook County’s teachers will also call each student at least once a week — twice a week for elementary students — to see how their at-home learning is going.

The school district’s free meals program, which already has food pick-ups at 10 different locations, will add a couple others soon, including one near Powell Butte, according to Johnson.

Sisters

Sisters School District is still working out the details for at-home learning, but it had a “skeleton plan” as of Wednesday, said Superintendent Curt Scholl.

Unlike most local school districts that have a one-week spring break starting Monday, Sisters’ spring break is two weeks long. Sisters staff will likely return to schools on April 6 to create a distance learning plan ready for students by April 8, Scholl said.

The school district is in the process of creating a webpage for families where they can reach assignments and other information, he said. Students in grades 5-12 already have district-issued Chromebooks, according to Scholl.

For families without internet access, the district will provide paper copies of assignments, Scholl said. It hasn’t been determined whether these paper assignments will be sent through the mail, or whether families will travel to a location to pick them up.

“We’re confident in our ability to reach all those folks,” Scholl said.

Culver

Once spring break ends March 30, Culver School District teachers will work on creating two weeks worth of assignments for every student, said Superintendent Stefanie Garber. Those assignments will be delivered by mail to students’ homes every two weeks, as long as the closure lasts, she said.

Lunch delivery by school bus will be once a week, and only for students who qualify for free or reduced lunch, after March 31, Garber said. As of the 2018-19 school year, that encompasses 62% of the district’s student population.

More details on Culver’s revised free meal plan will come soon, according to Garber.