Superintendent of Lake Orion Community Schools, Ben Kirby gave another COVID-19 update to the LOCS school board at their April 28 meeting.

While not much is changing as far as current procedure, Kirby has been proactive in the past several months in getting feedback from families and staff members.

“We’re not only managing the day-to-day for this school year but we’re also planning for the future,” Kirby said.

In the past, LOCS has asked parents and staff to fill out a thought exchange form online in order to get an idea of what families and staff are feeling or thinking about certain topics throughout the district.

This time, staff and families were asked about the district’s process moving forward.

According to Kirby, LOCS staff liked the virtual professional development training, the ability to hold remote parent-teacher conferences, the one-to-one technology that was implemented in the district this year, virtual staff meetings and virtual IEPs.

Additionally, district documents showed the things parents liked this year was the one-to-one technology, the virtual conferences and curriculum nights. Elementary parents viewed the current virtual learning platform SeeSaw as one with a lot of potential in the future for children who are home sick or on snow days while high school parents said they liked late start five days a week.

“I know that the district has looked at the idea of a later start at the high school. It’s something that research supports. It has constraints, it has benefits and that’s something that families have brought up,” Kirby said.

Kirby is also anticipating thought exchange data from the high school students in the future as well. — M.K.