Westside High School Principal Jay Opperman recently sent out an email to students on Tuesday, April 28, regarding plans for 2019-2020 summer school. Due to school cancellations caused by COVID-19, Westside High School’s summer school program will be online this year.

“Westside High School summer school will be offered in an online format this summer June 1 – June 24,” Opperman stated in the email. “The summer school catalog is now available on the WHS [web page]. Sign ups will begin May 1st through My School Bucks.”

As Opperman stated in his email, online summer school will take place from Monday, June 1, through Wednesday, June 24. It will be offered in two sessions, 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Dean of Freshman and Sophomore girls Lois Rasgorshek is the Administrator of Record for summer school and said that this is the first year Westside High School has had summer school online.

“[Westside High School has] not done summer school online before,” Rasgorshek said. “Classes and teachers had all been arranged prior to [the cancellation of school due to COVID-19].”

Academic Counselor Lindsey Stover said that she reviews all of the transcripts of students assigned to her and Social Emotional Counselor Kirk Henningsen, and decides if those students need to attend summer school to recover any classes or credits that are required to graduate.

“This week, I sent out individual letters via email to parents and [their child] with information about summer school and the courses that [the student] should consider signing up for,” Stover said. “Once summer school has [ends], I update each [of my summer school students’] transcripts and adjust their fall schedule as needed.”

Rasgorshek said that students who will be returning to Westside for the 2020-2021 school year will keep their school issued laptops over summer break, which allows students the opportunity to participate in online summer school. 

“Students who will return to WHS in the fall will not return their laptops [to school over summer break],” Rasgorshek said. “Seniors and students who will not return [to school during the next academic year] will be returning their laptops the week of May 18th.”