Over the course of a weekend the Eagle County School District community had to transition away from the traditional school system to a platform of online learning to ensure our safety in the time of global pandemic. Students, parents, and teachers alike have had to get creative and flexible in order to complete our all important education while also keeping ourselves safe.

“This has been a massive team effort by everybody,” says Dr. Katie Jarnot, the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction.

Teachers, administrators, and support staff have all had to work very hard and be very flexible in order to take the whole schooling operation online and provide the students the tools they need to succeed. 

One of the most obvious and challenging parts of this switch came on the technological side. The Eagle County Schools Technology Team had one weekend to prepare for the shift to online educational platforms. 

Education Technology Manager Brian Brugger explains that during that weekend, the Education Technology team added four pages to the ECS learning page, prepared virtual tools from “ED Tech” companies for teachers, and planned training sessions for teachers. 

For the first few weeks of this online learning, teachers were given four hours of technology training along with teaching their regular classes. 

“Our ECS tech team has been working extremely hard,” Brugger said. He explained that he and many members of the team had been working 70+ hours a week during this time. 

While many people are putting countless hours of time facilitating this challenging switch, there are still some problems that go along with it. 

“For some of our less engaged students, we are struggling with the fact that when there is not someone there to say “hey, get on task”, they are not engaging with the learning,” explained Dr. Jarnot. 

Teachers, counselors, and principals are working hard to reach out to 100% of families and provide support to help everyone stay engaged, but it is more challenging than it would be in the classroom setting.

EVHS students Anthony Nudell ‘21 and Mason Putnam ‘21 feel they are learning less in the online format. 

“It’s just not the same when you are learning over a video call,” says Putnam.

It has been confirmed that Eagle County Schools will continue this online platform for learning through the end of the school year. For high school seniors, this means that the end of their free and public education will be marked with online learning.

People throughout the district are working tirelessly to ensure that our community can get through this time as smoothly as possible.