HAHNVILLE, La. — It's been a long road to recovery in hard-hit St. Charles Parish and there's still so much to do. One good sign of progress is getting students back to school.
On Tuesday Destrehan High students returned to in-person learning. They've already been back to learning virtually through platoon scheduling.
St. Charles parish public schools have been using this method of scheduling to ensure students don't lose any more learning opportunities than they already have since the pandemic and hurricane Ida.
"We were able to modify some schedules based on the Covid protocols that we learned from and really were able to apply to this situation," Superintendent Dr. Ken Oertling explained. "We learned quite a bit from working with some of the challenges of Covid to apply to this situation here, so that the days that they’re not here, they basically do some self-paced learning. All teachers are still available as well through online resources to support their kids while they’re not physically there on campus."
Schools in the parish have re-opened in a phased approach as the damage and site-specific recovery varied.
Of course, the long-term goal is to get all students and staff back to their respective schools as soon as possible.
"We’ve diverted a lot of resources to try to get as many schools open as possible, but now for the most part all schools are open with the exception of our early learning center," Dr. Oertling said. "Now, we will be able to allocate all of our resources to Destrehan High School to try to get it up to a functioning state. Those students need to be back on their campus. While it’s certainly beneficial that we're able to work together as a school system at Hahnville High School, it’s important that we also recognize the importance of students to be able to attend school on their own campus."
As we learn more about school buildings getting cleared of meeting safety, environmental and operational standards we'll let you know.