By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Hoping to return to in-person education as soon as safely possible, local educators have requested input from families and staff on how best to reopen schools, administrators said today.
Sitka High School Principal Sondra Lundvick told the Sentinel in a phone call that safety is her number one concern for reopening schools, but she also worries about the impact of school closures on students’ mental health.
“We’re just trying to get a general sense of everyone’s comfort level and ... how we can move forward safely, which has been our number one priority all along,” Lundvick said of the survey sent to parents and school staff this morning.
Most local schools transitioned to online education on Wednesday, Nov. 11, in response to the rise in coronavirus cases in Sitka. The School District has indicated that schools will remain shuttered until at least Monday, Dec. 7. However, Baranof Elementary reopened on Nov. 16 with additional virus mitigations.
Lundvick added that she and her staff have witnessed increased degrees of loneliness from students.
“Yes, we have seen more feelings of isolation, more feelings of loneliness with less opportunity for socialization… We’re especially concerned as we get into winter, as daylight gets shorter, and it gets colder. Regular doldrums set in and we have to add that to 100 percent remote learning. You have some kids that are in a depressed state,” she said.
THANKFUL – Sitka High School teacher Betty Richter sent in a photo of her online class Tuesday morning. “Even though 2020 has been one of the hardest years we have been through, we agree that we still have much to be grateful for,” she said in an email. “Students in first period today shared some of the things they are thankful for, even in the midst of Covid-19. Music was the most popular answer,” she said. (Screenshot provided by Betty Richter)
Lundvick hoped for results from the survey by the end of the long weekend, though she was unsure of any specific time frame for allowing students back into physical classrooms.
She added that the school Smart Start Task Force, which helped craft the reopening plan implemented in August, has remained active.
“Our Smart Start Task Force has continued to meet and try to come up with additional mitigations or what other factors might be able to be considered, just in the best interest of students and learning – and honestly at this point in the best interest of mental health,” Lundvick said.
She argued that any form in in-school learning, even at reduced capacity, would be superior to online education.
“We feel (online learning) is better now than it was last spring, but we don’t feel like it is the most ideal form of learning. And we would like to have some semblance of in-person families at least for families that would like to utilize it,” she said.
Lundvick was not alone in hoping for a return to in-person learning.
Blatchley Middle School Principal Ben White sent out a similar survey to staff and parents. Like Lundvick, he expressed a hope for students to return to school buildings.
“We are very hopeful that kids will come back to the classroom. Obviously we have to put staff and student safety first,” White said today.
He added that he’s willing to add anti-virus procedures such as additional sanitation, but reaffirmed that there have been no known transmissions of the coronavirus in Sitka schools.
“We have not had any transmission of COVID-19 at schools, we’ve had people with the virus in the building, but no transmissions in school,” he said.
White believes that remote learning in Sitka stands out among other school districts, but is still far from ideal.
“Our remote learning in Sitka, I believe, is superior to a lot of remote learning… They’re seeing the teacher in live time. The teacher is seeing them in live time. It’s not asynchronous,” he said.
However, like his counterpart in the high school, White thinks online learning has taken a psychological toll.
“We’re doing the best job we can possibly be doing with our remote learning. But the mental health issues illustrate the problem very clearly,” he said.
Looking for a silver lining, White said many students have told him they want to return to traditional school.
“We tend to get things like ‘This sucks, I want to go back to school,’” White reported.
Blatchley Vice-Principal Laura Rogers seconded this.
“Every single kid I have talked to has said to me that they wish they were back in school in a normal scenario… That’s about the only silver lining. We want them back,” Rogers said this morning.
Rogers added that students receive a weekly email asking them to self-report on their own mental health by clicking on a face that best describes them, from smiling to frowning.
White hoped to have students back in the buildings sooner rather than later, albeit with a number of virus mitigations in place.
“I hope to have the students back in schools like we were a week and a half or two weeks ago. I don’t believe we’ll be going back full swing… I don’t think that’s going to happen even this year. But even having the kids in our building...” he said.
Keet Gooshi Heen Principal Casey Demmert hoped to get younger students back in their classrooms.
“I think getting schools open, the younger the student the higher the priority it is. So I could see a next possible phase would be bringing in second and third graders, and bringing in fourth and fifth grades after that,” Demmert said.
Demmert noted that the shift to digital learning has had a negative impact on his students.
“For kids’ social-emotional wellbeing, it’s difficult for them not to be coming to school and seeing their friends and being involved in activities... The peer interaction is super important, but I’m a big believer- for my own kids and all kids- the more positive adults they can have in their lives, thats just a good thing,” he said.
For Demmert, the survey will help gauge the thoughts of staff and parents.
“What we want to find out from parents is despite us being pretty high into the red zone of community spread, are you comfortable sending your child to school in person? And I feel like in the mitigations we put into place this summer we definitely aired on the more conservative side with what we implemented to try to keep things consistent. I feel like what we ave in place and what we were doing was very effective,” he said.
At Baranof Elementary, Principal Jill Lecrone said her school will remain open for in-person learning, even as circumstances shift daily.
“We’re just taking each day as it comes and hope we can provide a quality in-person education,” Lecrone said.
She noted that her school sent surveys to families earlier in the month in order to gauge opinions on staying open amid the worsening pandemic.
The response was emphatic, the principal said last week.
“I’ll put my kid in a hazmat suit. He needs to be back at school,” one parent told her.
Another parent quoted her child’s reaction after in-person classes were shut down last week: “I didn’t get to go trick or treating because of COVID. It’s my recess time right now but because I’m not at school I’m standing in my backyard. I should be at school with my friends building fairy houses.”
Speaking today, Lecrone credited the survey process for its role in getting Baranof reopened after a three-day hiatus from Nov. 11 to Nov. 13.
“That’s how this whole process happened in my building. I sent out a survey to families and staff as well and that’s how we got a majority open,” Lecrone said.
Superintendent John Holst agreed with Lecrone on the survey. He instructed administrators at the other local schools to distribute similar surveys.
“I asked them to do this and I asked them to take the survey that Jill used at Baranof, that worked really well,” Holst said today.
He noted that this survey will be used, along with other metrics, to form a plan to reopen schools.
“We need to find our way forward, and we have to decide when or if we’re going to be able to reopen the other schools. And we are trying to gather information,” he said. The superintendent added that other factors, such as daily virus case rates and test positivity rates, will figure in such a decision as well.
He stressed the need for flexibility.
“We may just be opening one building or part of one building,” he said.
In an email to families , Holst acknowledged the difficulty of the choices that face the school district.
“In the upcoming weeks the district will continue to be faced with difficult decisions that balance the risk of transmission against the learning and mental health needs of our staff, students, and families. I am receiving heart-breaking emails from parents near desperation because they need to quit working to take care of their own children and help them with their lessons, with no income just before Christmas. And, on the opposite side of this issue there are folks who are very concerned thinking about reopening. There are no easy answers right now,” Holst wrote today.
The Smart Start Task Force will reconvene online on Monday at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the results of the survey and share opinions.
