LOUISVILLE, Ky.  Parents and students in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) can push the pause button on the homeschooling, or Non-Traditional Instruction (NTI), for now. The last day of virtual classes is Wednesday. However, kids can keep the Chromebooks and Wifi hotspot devices the district supplied. They will be used in the Summer League program to run over the summer break.

Parent and PTA member Bobbi Jo Kingery offered her feedback on NTI to Spectrum News 1. Her daughter is graduating from eighth grade and heading to high school in the fall. 

“She had to answer questions on FaceTime or through email daily for attendance to make sure she was being accountable," Kingery explains of the seven weeks of digital learning she helped her daughter do.

She does have some worries ahead of the next school year. 

“Not having that classroom experience, I do worry going into ninth grade what the last three months of school that she hasn’t had that in-person with, will she really be on her AP level when she moves into her high school?" Kingery questions.

Over the last seven weeks, grading was relaxed. For elementary and middle students, there was a "meets" and "not yet" type of system, explains Chief Academic Officer Dr. Carmen Coleman. 

“I mean we want to be sure that we are not grading based on what’s happening in a student’s home life that we have no control over and they don’t either," says Coleman. 

For high schoolers, the grade as of March 13 before NTI was a sort of a starting point, with opportunities for students to improve on that through NTI assignments. Overall, Coleman expects teachers will need to do more remedial work with kids once things return to normal.

“We are also trying to think about what could we use that would give us a quick look at where kids are," she says, "we don’t want kids to see a test of some kind and think ‘oh my gosh I can’t do any of this.’”

Kingery has praise for the rigorous math and reading lessons she says her daughter did. However, she also has a critique, wanting "more one-on-one action. When my daughter would respond to her teachers, it was more of an email back."

As the school year wraps, JCPS has a survey for parents, students, and teachers here.