After Multiple Delays, Salt Lake City School District Holds First Day Of Classes
Sep 14, 2020, 5:33 AM | Updated: 5:23 pm
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Students in the Salt Lake City School District are finally having their first day of school after multiple delays due to last week’s severe windstorm.
The district is holding classes completely online this year, and the hurricane-force winds knocked out power to more than 180,000 customers in northern Utah. So while power may have been restored to many of the schools, district officials pushed the first day of school back nearly a week since many households were still without electricity.
School was supposed to start Tuesday – the day of the storm. On Thursday, interim Superintendent Larry Madden announced classes would instead resume Monday to help ensure power is running and students and educators can connect via remote learning.
An inside look at remote learning this morning for the #firstdayofschool within the Salt Lake City School District after hurricane like winds delayed school another week. Details on @KSL5TV pic.twitter.com/UBMezxd1bF
— Felicia Martinez (@FeliciaKSL) September 14, 2020
“So all Salt Lake City junior high and high schools are doing the same schedule,” said East High School teacher Lynette Yorgason. “It’ss basically a bell schedule but with synchronous learning – or like Zoom class learning.”
The district is the only one in the state to begin the school year completely online.
“The one concern we have is making sure everyone’s connected,” said Clayton Middle School Principal Dallin Miller. “So our priority for the first few weeks will be who’s in class, who’s not, why are they not in class? Is it they have a device they can’t connect, or they don’t have the information?”
Madden said the delay was disappointing to families, students and the district, but everyone is looking forward to resuming school Monday.