Teachers throughout the Rapid City Area Schools District are using a variety of technology and software programs to conduct virtual classes. The lack of consistency is becoming a problem for students and parents at all grade levels at multiple school locations.

Parents struggle with helping their children, of all ages, know what assignments are due and when they are due. Not all teachers are inputting assignments, class information, quizzes, tests, etc. into a central location to make it easy for the students (and parents) to know where the status of their course work for completion.

There is reason to believe that Canvas was not properly configured during installation, as teachers became aware of a setting issue preventing grades from synching from Canvas to the district's communication software/grade book, Skyward.  It was the week of October 19th when the students at Central High School finally received a centralized dashboard to view upcoming assignments in Canvas. Teachers are also facing issues with Canvas's auto-grading feature. When faced with a problem, the administration directs parents to teachers - who are lesson planning, grading, working with students, and trying to find balance in their own personal lives in addition to responding to angry messages from parents who are confused, frustrated, and fearful for their child(ren)'s education. For those parents in high school, grades matter, even more, when a student is looking to go to college. 

Teachers were instructed they were given the choice of using Google Classrooms or Canvas for the 2020/2021 school year, but to keep in mind Google Classrooms will be phased out for the following school year. Canvas is a *choice* for the current school year - not a requirement.

Katy Urban shares Canvas was not made a requirement because some teachers were not comfortable teaching in a software program they didn't feel ready for. Katy states that training was provided and future training is going to be available to them. Katy was not knowledgeable of the type of training (guided with an instructor or video playlists) teachers were given. When offered to train teachers for free using a hands-on, in-person approach, the offer was graciously turned down.

Katy Urban has stated teachers are expected to keep Canvas/Google Classrooms up-to-date in case of a Level 3 status where all students are distance learning. But not all teachers are because they have also been given direction to enter assignment/class information into another program: Planbook. Per Katy Urban, Planbook is the required placement for teachers to enter in class/assignment information. However, when interviewing parents it was discovered that teachers at Stevens High School are not using Planbook at all.

Dr. Lori Simon has replied that she will have the Teaching and Learning and Technology Directors look into complaints I shared with her and Katy via email on Oct. 20, 21, and 22. 

Having teachers enter class information in Planbook AND Canvas duplicates their work - which is the suspicion for why SHS has made the decision they have and skipped this step altogether. When this issue was shared with Katy Urban, her response was to not expect a change for the current school year.

I appreciate the professionalism of Ms. Urban and the teachers of RCAS. But there's an opportunity for improvement here. While it is no secret this is a difficult year and that this is a common problem for schools across the nation, we can be better than that by implementing a real solution, quickly. Sadly, teachers are not empowered to create that solution for their classrooms - I imagine many are doing what they can to meet the demands of their job with requirements set by the district and the expectations of the parents, while still trying to educate students properly. 

This petition is to have ALL teachers in RCAS District to use Canvas for the second half of the 2020/2021 school year as a solution to resolve the inconsistencies, confusion, frustration, and communication bottlenecks that many RCAS families are experiencing so far this year. AND to have Canvas properly configured prior to the start of the second half of the school year so the tool that teachers and students are given is one that works and works well.