Photo By Patrick Hodges | Braden of the School Age Center uses the facility’s Wi-Fi via his personal laptop...... read more read more
By Kelly Appelman, Fort Knox News
FORT KNOX, Ky. – The Donna Kirby School Age Center staff have adjusted processes to better support their customers’ educational needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Children going to the SAC can now use the building’s Wi-Fi to participate in Fort Knox Community Schools virtual learning via personally-owned computing devices.
This demand emerged Nov. 30 when the post’s health protection condition level increased to CHARLIE and Fort Knox Community Schools returned to all virtual learning. Some parents cannot stay at home during school hours because of their mission essential status, so that left the SAC as a viable option for their children in kindergarten through 5th grades.
SAC Director Sandy Hinerman said its higher headquarters, U.S. Army Installation Management Command, acted quickly in allowing a change to the policy addressing Wi-Fi usage because they recognized the need to ease the burden on parents and children.
“Each child has to be able to get on their computer, has to be able to communicate with that teacher, has to get into that program and has to be able to do their work” said Hinerman.
While SAC staff aren’t educators or IT professionals, Hinerman said they are doing the best they can to support the students. Ensuring children keep at least six feet apart, helping children with their various grade-level questions and finding outlets for everyone to charge their devices since extension cords aren’t permitted are among the additional factors staff are addressing.
“I give my staff all the credit,” said Hinerman.
For the first week under this policy change, the SAC averaged 10-20 students using Wi-Fi on a daily basis. Hinerman said she expects to see those numbers go up as parents figure out a schedule that works best for both them and their children. At this time, SAC’s priority childcare is for children of mission essential personnel; however, other non-essential families may have their children to attend if space is available.
“This is hard on everyone,” Hinerman said. “Hard on the kids trying to do this without their teachers and the stability of being in school and hard on parents trying to help them out while working or teleworking. We are here and doing our best to help them.”
| Date Taken: | 12.08.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 12.08.2020 15:38 |
| Story ID: | 384492 |
| Location: | FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY, US |
| Web Views: | 52 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, School Age Center expands Wi-Fi accessibility to support children’s virtual learning, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
