Education Notes: Many Gibraltar Parents Opt for Remote Learning

Fish Creek – Forty-seven percent of parents chose to send preschool- through second-grade sons and daughters to Gibraltar on Monday, according to Superintendent Tina Van Meer. It was the first day of in-person schooling in the Gibraltar School District since last spring.

With remote learning still available online, the district has implemented a “blended learning plan” for a “soft opening” of classrooms, with pre-kindergarten through second-grade students attending Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; and third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students attending on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“Things are running smoothly so far today,” Van Meer said Monday in an emailed reply. “We had approximately 34 PK-2 students in-house today.”

Social-distancing measures are in place, and in order to maintain social distancing in hallways, the school board approved the plan with assigned days for the different grades.

The sixth- through 12th-grade phased-in return is set to begin Jan. 11.

Watch Livestreamed SBHS Games, Matches 

Sturgeon Bay – Sturgeon Bay High School (SBHS) basketball and wrestling competition began this week. 

The games and matches are closed to spectators, but the boys and girls varsity basketball games played in Sturgeon Bay – and even some of the junior varsity (JV) events – are available to watch via livestream at tinyurl.com/clipperpride, according to Athletic Director Todd Meikle. He said the wrestling meets can also be watched live on the SBS Wrestling Facebook page.

Girls basketball began Monday, wrestling Tuesday and boys basketball Friday.

“We were livestreaming every game last year,” Meikle said. “The only difference is I’m working to get WDOR to provide a sound feed of play by play, and the other thing is we’ve never streamed the JV games, and we’re going to try to.”

Meikle is also trying to see whether the freshman boys basketball games – played in the junior high gym at the same time as the sophomore games in the high school gym – can be streamed on the wrestling Facebook page.

Meikle said this week’s start to interscholastic competition required a lot of planning and precautions, including temperature checks for athletes, social distancing and mask wearing on buses, and checking in with on-site managers when teams visit other schools.