Schools: Back to class
Beaches, sunshine and a glimpse of summer’s freedom—the return from Spring break is a familiar ritual.
But for many K-12 students the first week after break last year was rendered unrecognizable when the Oklahoma Department of Education announced a shift to distance learning for the remainder of Spring 2020.
At the start of the 2020-2021 school year, North Rock Creek, Chandler and Stroud all opted to return to in-person education, with some distancing learning continuing as well.
North Rock Creek superintendent Blake Moody said that about 10 percent of North Rock Creek’s students chose online learning, but that most of those students have now returned to in-person study.
Stroud schools took a similarly mixed approach.
“We had a virtual option for all of our students on a daily basis and we opened school as planned,” Stroud superintendent Joe Van Tuyl said.
Meanwhile in Chandler, school returned to fulltime in-person education for most of the year, with a switch to a temporary AB schedule from November 17-February 8.
“Students came every other day, and everyone was virtual on Friday,” Chandler superintendent Melody Toma said.
Despite the large number of students returning to school in-person, all three school districts are still facing COVID-19’s impact on their day-to-day functions.
“The quarantines are a factor,” Van Tuyl said, “obviously, fear, anxiety that’s naturally associated with COVID-19 was a factor, those are the two biggest things.”
Various safety measures have been implemented at each school, including enhanced cleaning regimens and encouraging social distancing between students. North Rock Creek implemented a face covering requirement for 5th-12th grade students and used a cohort system to aid contact tracing. Chandler and Stroud schools both do not currently require masks.
Overall, the new distancing and cleaning practices have had an unintentional, pleasant side effect.
“We have had a relatively zero flu season this year,” Moody said. “And I believe that some of that is due to social distancing, masks, and the disinfecting and cleaning that our custodial crews have maintained throughout the year.”
Chandler schools reported a similarly low number of cases.
“We have seen very, very few strep cases; very, very few flu cases,” Toma said.
The policies seem to have had some level of success in containing Covid-19 cases, as well.
“I think we hit about, oh, five to eight percent of our students and staff with positive cases,” Moody said. “All of those cases are back in the classroom, healthy and happy.”
Coping with the Covid-19 pandemic has been a learning experience for teachers and students alike.
“We’ve learned to evaluate the situations that we’re faced with and to develop solutions to problems,” Van Tuyl said.
Toma said educators need to be flexible to handle these challenges.
“The one thing that we’ve learned with not just myself, but with my teachers and with our students is that flexibility, you have to be flexible, you have to offer grace,” Toma said. “Because not everything is going to be perfect.”
Moody agreed.
“It’s taught me to be even more flexible as a school leader than what I have been in the past,” Moody said.
“It’s also taught me to be open minded.”
Distance learning has led some students to view school in a new light.
“Our students, when they came back in the fall this year, they were so kind, and—let me see how I want to put that—accepting,” Toma said. “They just realized how important it is to be in school every day.”
The past year has been an opportunity for students to learn coping skills.
“I hope students have learned to appreciate the positive things they have in their life,” Van Tuyl said, “and how to evaluate and cope with the things that are negatives, and take each day in stride and try to make each day the best that it can be.”
The classroom time lost during distance learning has led some to worry that students are falling behind in their studies.
“We’ve got strategies in place to mitigate those issues to the greatest degree possible, and we’re all, you know, we’re really kind of all working through this in the same manner,” Van Tuyl said. “We’re trying to make tomorrow better than today.”
Toma said that schools typically expect some loss of learning over the summers.
“It was more significant coming into the year because of the loss of last spring,” she said. “But I will tell you children are very resilient and can make up ground pretty quick.”
All three schools anticipate a return to a more normal year for 2021-2022, in part due to the vaccine rollouts currently in progress.
“In August, we plan to start school in a normal fashion with vaccinated staff and students, as they chose to get vaccinated, and to have a regular school year,” Moody said.
However, none of the three schools said they anticipate requiring students to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, at this time.
“It’s going to have to be the state of Oklahoma making that a requirement out of the State Department of Education, or a CDC requirement but I don’t believe that’s going to come down,” Toma said.