By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
After two months of remote learning, students across the school district returned to in-person classes last week for the first time since mid-November, leaving educators ecstatic.
“It was so great to have students back in the building again, just to have the classrooms with kids in them and hearing noise in the hallway,” Sitka High Principal Sondra Lundvick said in an interview.
While the months of online teaching were doable, she preferred the personal connections involved in traditional education.
“They were so happy to be back. Remote learning serves a purpose but it’s a lot harder to have the connection you have with the in-person,” she said. “Students were happy to be back in the building. We had music playing at the door.” On the first day back, high schoolers entered the building to disco music.
Blatchley Middle School sixth-grader Erik Fish, right, dispenses hand sanitizer to classmate Hemi Garrison today. In-person learning returned to the district with mitigation measures in effect including wearing masks, social distancing and frequent hand cleaning. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
Sitka High has maintained its cohort system, in which only half of the student body arrives for in-person classes each day. Masks stay on and cleaning is ongoing.
The principal believes the school can safely educate its students within that cohort system, and highlighted the essential nature of learning in-person.
“Nothing can replace that face-to-face interaction,” she said.
Looking forward, Lundvick acknowledged the high degree of uncertainty swirling around the new year.
“I can’t predict this. This is an unpredictable situation we’re in. We’re making the best of what is placed in front of us,” she said. “We’re just happy to have kids back in the building. That’s what we’re all in this business for.”
At nearby Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School, Principal Casey Demmert welcomed the change and added that students are excited to be back.
“It’s a really good vibe. The teachers are extremely happy to have their students back in person and the kids are really happy to be back. It’s been fun to see them in their classes and out on the playground. Every student I’ve asked said it’s really good,” Demmert said.
He recalled a story from a parent who said her son was up through the night asking if it was time for school.
“She said that her son was up several times in the night excited about coming to school, and got up early and said ‘Is it time to go yet?’”
Although a spike in local coronavirus cases in November necessitated the two-month hiatus for all local schools except Baranof Elementary, Demmert reported that students returned to a sense of normalcy automatically.
“As we were preparing for students to come back, we wanted to make sure we were going over all of our routines… and, boy, the kids just came in and it was almost like they had never been gone. They knew the routines and stepped right back in,” he said. “It’s almost like that remote time never happened.”
Demmert reaffirmed that, so far, there has been no confirmed virus transmission within the school district.
He noted that it’s difficult to compare education this year to that in pre-pandemic school years, but he praised his teachers for rolling with the punches.
“The way school is set up this year it’s like comparing apples and oranges. As far as this year and the pace that’s taking place with the curriculum, I think teachers maintained that pace fairly well in the virtual world. And so I would say we picked things up and are kind of continuing.”
Moving forward, Demmert hopes to start again next month in providing in-person breakfasts and lunches to students.
Taking a district-wide perspective, Superintendent John Holst said in a Wednesday email to school families that he’s glad for students and teachers to be back in school buildings.
“Students are happy to be back and teachers are happy to have them in face-to-face instruction. We seem to be settling into a routine that frankly feels very good,” Holst wrote.
Along with the reopening of schools, Holst highlighted the slow but steady drop in local coronavirus cases.
“Our COVID-19 case count continues to be elevated and we’re watching that number very closely. Yesterday, we dropped to 18 cases over the past 14 days, and a large number of the cases will drop off the 14-day count. It appears that we may have dodged the expected holiday surge, at least for now,” he wrote.
“All of the other indicators that we added to the Smart Start Plan in December remain positive. We continue to hover around 1 percent of all tests showing the virus. In addition, SEARHC is reporting very low numbers of COVID-19 patients in the hospital, none as of (Tuesday),” he said.
He added that about 80 staff members will receive their second vaccine doses this week.
With new strains of the virus emerging around the world, Holst re-emphasized the need for mitigations and precautions in order to keep Sitkans safe.
“Our goal continues to be strong fidelity to all of the mitigations: mask wearing, distancing, hand washing and disinfection. So far the reports have been mostly positive but we have discovered some areas that we are working to correct. This is very important to get right, as Public Health has warned us that a more virulent and contagious strain of the virus is likely on its way.”
The City of Sitka continues to list local coronavirus risk as high.
Across the bridge on Japonski Island, students at Mt. Edgecumbe High also returned to class last week. MEHS Superintendent Janelle Vanesse, like Holst, was glad to see her students back to class.
“It’s fantastic. You know students and their families really appreciate in-person education. Our kids were really patient. They knew they had to come back and do several days of quarantine,” she said today.
MEHS detected four coronavirus cases among returning students, but Vanesse said that with proper testing and mitigation, the cases were isolated and there was no further spread of the virus.
“We expected that may be the case. We had a pretty solid plan for kids to come in and do their quarantine with us recognizing that many kids are coming from hot spots,” she said.
Looking back on months of virtual learning, the superintendent said the greatest loss was the social aspect of education.
“The greatest loss is that for most people learning is a social activity. And interacting with your teacher and your peers is a really important part of learning and gaining a greater understanding of the material,” she said. “Certainly if you’re going to practice critical thinking, for most of us when we have the ability to talk that through with others that’s really critical.”
After years as an educator, Vanesse joked that she had never anticipated acclimatizing to teaching during a global pandemic.
“One of the things we laugh about here all the time is just how good we’re getting at managing a pandemic. None of us ever anticipated this.”
