Photo courtesy of NFHS Network The Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw Schools have submitted their Continuity of Learning Plan to the Copper Country Intermediate School District. Along with their plan, Calumet High School, shown above, has extended its building’s Wi-Fi range to help those families who do not have internet within the area.

CALUMET TOWNSHIP — The Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw (CLK) Schools have submitted their Continuity of Learning Plan to the Copper Country Intermediate School District earlier this week, Superintendent Christopher Davidson said.

In accordance to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Executive Order, 2020-35, Davidson said the Plan was submitted to the CCISD last Thursday.

When the Governor announced on April 2 that all K-12 schools in Michigan would remained closed to face-to-lace learning through the end of the school year, Davidson said his district already had most of their plan in place.

“We saw that this was the direction the state was probably going to go, and we made a good head start effort,” Davidson said.

Already, on March 31, the district made accessible a page on the school website that Davidson said is called the at-home learning plans.

“We were working, holding staff meetings, rolling out this learning plan, and getting all the pieces of the puzzle in place throughout that last week of March, in preparation for learning to start on April 6,” he said.

Even though the school had already been in compliance with the Continuity of Learning Plan, Davidson and his staff were disappointed to learn that the state did not permit the school to go back and count any learning days prior to the state’s timelines.

“That was a little disappointing,” he said, “but the nice thing is our folks put in all the hard work, put in all the training and preparations necessary to be ready for an early roll-out. So, it was kind of an easy transition for us going into the Plan. Essentially, what we had in place was all those guidelines. We just had to add some details in response to the governor’s Executive Order 2020-35 to tie into that.”

Davidson said he received a call from CCISD Superintendent George Stockero, saying the plan was received, and it looks good, but no formal approval has been given yet.

The CLK’s plan includes online learning and printed packets for those students with limited internet access. The learning packets are available for pick-up weekly, but chromebooks are also being distributed, trying to limit the number of printed learning packets, Davidson said, because the packets are not as effective as what online learning has to offer.

For those families with limited or no internet access, the school has created what they call drive-up Wi-Fi in their bus lane.

“We’ve extended (the range) of our school Wi-Fi, powered up to our bus lane, so people can pull up, practice social distancing, sit in their cars, or sit on the sidewalk, and download videos, and put some time in on their learning on a daily basis.”

Davidson said that while the extended Wi-Fi is available at the main campus, work is also being done to expand Wi-Fi at their other locations, such as in Mohawk, for students in “north end of the Keweenaw,” so students can park outside of the Horizons School.