PARK CITY— Park City Schools is preparing to transition to remote learning after crews fixing the school’s roof discovered vermiculite, which may contain asbestos.
Strong winds damaged the roof Dec. 17, resulting in thousands of dollars of damage.
Watch for the report:
Students have not returned to school since the damage occurred, and school has been cancelled for the week of Jan. 5. Remote learning is set to start after that week.
Related: Park City Schools close after 'suspicious material' discovered
According to Park Schools Superintendent David Whitesell, abatement will take six to eight weeks, but the exact timeline is undetermined.
“I think we're being conservative when we talk six to eight weeks, nothing's confirmed there. But we're moving carefully, not slowly,” said Whitesell.
Concerns about remote learning have arisen from Park City parents, such as how the school will accommodate children with no internet.
“Where we're located, we're at the end of the line of service for our internet company, and so we don't have fast or large internet capability. We can't run more than one TV. I can't have four children on tablets. It's impossible. The lag, and they just wouldn't connect, and so for me, it'd be impossible to have my children remotely learn,” said Rachel Patterson, who has four kids attending Park City Schools.
Another concern among parents is how the school will accommodate young children with parents who work during the day.
“Of course, you have these families that work during the day, but they might have two, three, four kids that are on remote learning. And what about our littles that they can't be left home alone, but their parents are working?” said another parent, Bobette Lindstrand.
“I just have so much faith in our administration that I know they're gonna figure this stuff out. It’s just gonna take time,” she added.
The school district’s administration has some ideas to solve these issues, such as using cleared parts of the school or other public buildings for learning.
“I think that's one of the big pieces that we're looking at with the elementary kids, especially in our preschool to third grade— can we get them on campus? Can we get them into other community areas where we can provide that instruction?” said Whitesell.
“They would go into onsite instruction, whether it be over at the civic center, at the fire hall, the Baptist church, the Lutheran church. There's a bunch of areas that we're working on to try to see if we can find accommodations in that fashion. I will say the community's been absolutely fantastic with the assistance that they've been affording the school district through this process,” he added.
As for helping students access internet, he hopes to bring an internet source to a school building, such as their vocational agriculture building.
“With kids that do not have internet, we're looking at, with our remote, we'd have a hotspot here at the school,” said Whitesell.
The school will be finalizing a plan for remote learning while school is cancelled next week.
