Richland School District to hold town halls to get parent feedback on return-to-school options

RICHLAND, Wash.-- Starting next week, the Richland School Board plans to host a series of virtual town hall meetings to get feedback from parents and other stakeholders on proposed plans for reopening schools in the fall.

Earlier this week, the board met with school administrators to hammer out some of the details on the proposed options for in-person, virtual, and hybrid instruction.

"We want our families to have options for how they move forward in the fall," said Ty Beaver, spokesperson for the school district. "While the board has yet to fully determine an option for how we would reopen our traditional schools-- whether that's going to be fully online, or a hybrid model of online and in-person, that's going to be effected also by health requirements and things of that nature."

Beaver says parents can elect to take part in parent-led homeschooling through Three Rivers HomeLink, or a teacher-led fully on-line teacher-directed program called Richland Virtual School, which is currently under development.

"The virtual school will be an option that families can select if they know they aren't going to be comfortable having their child return to in-person instruction because of the situation with COVID-19, they can opt in to that for the duration of the school year," Beaver said.

Town hall meetings to discuss the options will be online through the Zoom video-conferencing platform and will be roughly one hour long. A board member and district administrator will lead each meeting.

Parents and others who take part will have the opportunity to make spoken comments and participate in polling on the reopening options for schools and other learning options for families.

No decisions will be made during the town hall meetings.

Select the meeting topic and date that meets your needs:
Tuesday, July 21
6:30 p.m., Elementary Schools (grades K – 5) (https://rsd400.zoom.us/j/96760117096)                             

Wednesday, July 22
6:30 p.m.Secondary Schools (grades 6 – 12) (https://rsd400.zoom.us/j/97083470219)

Thursday, July 23
6:30 p.m., Special Education & Students on IEPs (https://rsd400.zoom.us/j/94921751739)