As I write this column, two things are starting new years. This begins my ninth year in this spot. (Thanks for the support!) And this also starts my 25th year teaching at NRHEG. (I’ve been around a while!)
What a year to celebrate a quarter-century of education. We’ve been told fully to expect that we will teach in all three scenarios this year: distance learning, hybrid, and in-person.
I thought it might be nice to walk in the shoes of a couple students and visit what things will look like in our secondary building when we are in hybrid. (I’m not really familiar with the elementary plan, sorry.) We’ll call these kids Bobby and Suzy. Bobby is a junior and Suzy is starting 7th grade.
Suzy gets on the bus at about 7:15. She’s wearing her mask and notices that some of the seats have an X to preserve some distancing. The bus will only end up at about 50% capacity. Suzy doesn’t get to turn around and visit with others, but she’s very excited to get to school.
Bobby drives himself to school each day. He gets up around 7:30, throws himself together, grabs a granola bar, and is out the door with the intention of getting to school about 8:15. When he gets to school, he notices the parking lot doesn’t have nearly as many cars as usual, due to the every-other-day set-up of hybrid learning.
Suzy was at school a little before 8:00. She headed to the cafeteria and had breakfast. Just like on the bus, she noticed that some seats were off-limits. She sat at the same table as one of her friends, but they were six feet apart. When Suzy was finished eating, she was directed to go to her first classroom.
As Suzy was heading down the hall, Bobby was entering the school. He also wanted to grab breakfast. He noticed most kids were leaving the cafeteria. A staff member told him they had to keep from congregating. Those who had been in school for some time had to head to a classroom, either to get help from a teacher or to be in their first-hour class. Bobby shrugged, scarfed down breakfast, and then walked down to his first class.
One thing both Suzy and Bobby noticed as their first class started was that the bells had been shut off. The teachers explained that classes would be dismissed by teachers in a staggered fashion to keep too many students from being in the halls all at once.
With about five minutes left in class, both Suzy’s and Bobby’s teachers pulled out spray bottles and walked around sanitizing the desks and chairs that had been occupied that hour. The students in those seats just shifted to stand by the neighboring seats since there had been chairs and desks left open between each student to maintain distancing. They found out that the students in the next hour would sit in the opposite seats to allow time for any sanitizer to dry.
None of the students were allowed to go to their lockers or the bathrooms on their way to their next classes. Lockers were only used for jackets, umbrellas, gym shoes, etc. Suzy and Bobby both thought about how congested the halls normally were and nodded as they knew that wasn’t safe during the pandemic. Groups marched down the right sides of hallways, six feet apart, and headed right to their next classes.
When Suzy went to middle school lunch, she saw kids spread out in both the upper and lower commons and even some heading into the media center. There were X’s on the floor to mark out where kids could stand in the lunch line when they were dismissed. But first, she had to go to her next class and drop off her backpack. She also decided to plug in her Chromebook to make sure it had a full charge for the afternoon.
After she ate, she joined some of the kids who went outside. Hooray! They could still have recess, even though the teacher supervising would have to sanitize everything that was used when they were done. They didn’t get as much time outside because they had to distance as they lined up to go back inside.
Bobby also dropped off his backpack in his next classroom before heading to lunch. Senior high lunch had more students, so some of them even got to eat in the shop! Cool!
The rest of the day went along those same lines. In each class, they were distanced and had their seats sanitized at the end of class. They also stopped at the hand sanitizer on their way into each new space. Their 7th-hour teachers also told them that staff would be cleaning any other touchpoints at the end of each day. Bobby wondered how long it would be before he was sick of that smell! But at least the school was taking precautions.
As Bobby left 7th hour, he was handed a lunch for the next day, when he’d be at home, joining all his classes via Google Meet, and learning right along with the kids who were in school on opposite days. Suzy had to wait, though, since she would get her lunch from her bus driver, so it would stay cold in the cooler in the front seat.
Both students also realized it hadn’t been terrible wearing masks all day. The new dehumidification system in the school had kept the air in the rooms at a comfortable temperature, and they also knew that involved some new filtration systems. All in all, Bobby and Suzy were just happy to be in the building again, even if it wasn’t every day. They longed for the day when they could be there every day, so they could resume complaining about school again!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is descamisado, which means a very poor person, as in, “The virus didn’t care if you were wealthy or a descamisado, though those who didn’t have access to regular health care were adversely affected.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!