COVID-19 may have left empty halls and empty classrooms in the Eagle Grove Area Community School District last week, but it did not leave empty minds.
When school dismissed unexpectedly back in March, administrators and teachers had no idea it would be the last time they saw their students in their classrooms for the remainder of the year. As the summer inched by, they quickly realized that they may not get their students back at the start of the new school year either. Just in case, they began working on a plan for online learning, hoping they wouldn’t need it.
To the pleasure of some, and the dismay of others, the school year began with in-person classes on August 24, 2020 like normal, or at least as normal as things could be in the midst of COVID. They were back in their classrooms, but masks or face shields were required. Adjustments were made to scheduling to keep kids in pods when possible to limit exposure to the fewest number of kids possible. Sanitation was a top priority…but despite all of their best efforts, positive COVID tests from both staff and students sent around 80 students from the elementary and another 80 students from the high school into quarantine. This is when Eagle Grove Superintendent Jess Toliver, in cooperation with Wright County Public Health, decided it would be in their best interest to close the schools down for a little over a week. Classes were cancelled for Thursday, Sept. 24 and Friday, Sept. 25, but the following week students and teachers were back in learning mode – virtually.
“It was challenging to move from face-to-face to online learning,” said EGHS teacher Sherry Leksell. “We prepared all summer for this possibility – but as teachers, the relationship piece is so important. Kids became less talkative online. In a normal day, there is an easy give and take of chatter, easy conversation about content. That was limited in the online platform.”
Leksell said she realized that perhaps this was because of computer lag time – perhaps they were just trying not to interrupt one another since there were delays. Despite their quiet demeanor, she said she was “pleasantly surprised” that most of her students logged in on time and were ready to learn.
“They were EXTREMELY patient,” she said. “There was a lot of new technology to work with and we learned to adapt. For example, in order for me to see kids and read the script of our play (Romeo and Juliet) – I needed two screens. Mr. Schwake, our band teacher, set me up but it was challenging for me to learn all of the steps to make that work. Thankfully, the kids are always quick with suggestions. They are very adaptive and skilled at technology.”
Robert Blue Middle School reading teacher Carrie Christopher agreed with Leksell’s pleasant surprise to the number of kids that logged on for classes like they were supposed to.
“Very few kids missed,” Christopher noted.
But she admitted there were some frustrations throughout the week as well.
“The thing that is always frustrating is that when you email them they don’t email you back. When that really is your only way of getting ahold of them, we really need them to at least acknowledge that they received your message,” said Christopher. “The other thing that wasn’t expected was that we tried to plan fun interactive things for the kids to do together online… like Jam Board… but the kids couldn’t get anything to load. So when you spend time creating fun stuff and then it doesn’t work you have to go to plan B ( hope and pray you had a plan B ) …. so things were probably boring, but we tried our best!”
Jeannie Herrington, Eagle Grove Elementary fourth grade teacher, said “Our attendance was better than expected. Ms. High and I had about 85-90% in attendance each day, whereas Mrs. Hesse had 100% attendance until Friday, and she only had one student not show (that day). That is incredible! Either way, I am grateful for the kids who participated and can’t thank the parents enough for helping them be accountable.”
Elementary students did not have to be online all day. Their sessions were in the afternoon, but Herrington was shocked that many students wanted to get on before that…or stay on after they were finished with classes.
“We all had office hours in the morning in case the kids had any questions about their homework or anything…but what surprised me, was the number of students who wanted to get on and just chat. There were several who were just bored and wanted to see us and just chat. It was fun…some didn’t want to leave then either after class was finished at 3 p.m.. I was ok with chatting with them for a bit longer,” Herrington said.
“I really missed (my students),” added Leksell. “I missed the classroom energy and the conversations that happen just naturally when we’re discussing material.”
The teaching approach was different as well. For instance, in Leksell’s 10th grade glass, before the week’s disruption, they were reading Romeo and Juliet in the classroom (which they were finishing from ninth grade since COVID interrupted classes then, too). When school got moved to online, she assigned parts and had students read out loud.
“But I also took some tips from the elementary and made little puppets of the characters and held them up to the screen to help students visualize the characters they were reading about,” said Leksell about her inventive, attention-getting idea to keep the kids engaged.
On the days her class didn’t meet, she sent home packets of things they could do. Leksell was grateful that the bus drivers helped deliver out homework, so the kids could glue and create note catchers about the play. She also created a “how-to” video for them to watch her do the same assignment. This allowed them to watch her in the video, pause it as they did the activity, and do more of it. It was her version of a YouTube video that all the kids love to watch.
Leksell also delivered a number of note cards and other school supplies to her junior and senior students who were in the process of writing papers before the week dismissal. To help them out, she spent Wednesday, Sept. 23 driving around delivering them house-to-house!
“Once we had all the supplies we needed – those classes worked great as they got instruction on one day and then could write the next. I think it worked pretty smoothly,” she said.
“As far as our approaches, we all had the same goal in mind; doing all possible to keep the kids engaged and trying to keep our online teaching as similar to the classroom,” said Herrington.
They began each day with a “morning meeting,” and then some quick activity that got all the kids involved and talking to each other.
As for in Herrington’s fourth grade classrooms, they focused on book genres. She created and presented slides for the students, a video, and a homework piece to be submitted. After that, they presented an Interactive Read Aloud that is part of the new Fountas and Pinnell curriculum.
“Throughout the story, teachers stop and pose questions for thinking and clarification of the story. Each read aloud has a theme that connects to the other read alouds for that week. This week ours was empathy,” explained Herrington.
The elementary students were also excited about still being able to have their “specials” like music, art, and more.
“Our Specials teachers did a super job teaching them! We just added them to our Google Classroom so they could pop in at their time. It was fun to see the kids’ face and respond to them,” said Herrington.
“The community has been incredibly supportive. While I was out delivering assignments, I had community help showing me where people lived. Parents called in and we worked as a team to help their students. Teachers lent a hand to other teachers. I also am so thankful for Jess Toliver – he has had to be extremely adaptive and he keeps student and teachers need at the forefront of his decision making. Last week, he helped watch teacher’s kids, gave me solutions for getting homework to kids, provided guidance for COVID — all while parenting his own young family. I think the Eagle Grove school district has risen to the challenge,” said Leksell.
Herrington added, “I would like the community to know how much we invest into our students and how many amazing parents we have! For me, during this time I have connected with parents in a different way and we all care about the kids! Their social emotional health comes first and helping them know how much we are all in the same storm, but sometimes in different boats is important.”
The students returned back to the hallways of Eagle Grove schools on Tuesday, Oct. 5. They also returned with new quarantine guidelines from the Governor and Iowa Public Health. It states that as long as both involved parties are wearing a face mask, that if one person receives a positive COVID test result, the other person they were near (again, if they were at all times wearing a face mask) does not have to be quarantined unless they are showing symptoms. This new guideline will hopefully prevent so many kids missing in-person classes.
Wright County Epidemiologist Sandy McGrath said, however, that things can change and there still could be some outbreaks. If this occurs, Public Health and the school will stay in contact to decide what is best for the district. It is possible that at some point in time, students may go virtual for another week of learning to help contain the spread of COVID. A week of online schooling here and there would still meet the Governor’s requirement of at least 50% of in-person classes for students.
For now, at least, the students are back in class and proceeding forward in the most normal way they can in a not normal school year.
“I am just so thankful to have them in the building again,” said Christopher. “They make my day… every day! It’s the little things you miss when you are online.”
