A first for back to school
Scores of Houston-area students return to classrooms since leaving in March
The first-day-of-school jitters felt different for Juliette Jijon as she walked to McElwain Elementary school with her mother, Cindy Lilholt.
She already had met her third-grade classmates and teacher over Zoom calls after Katy ISD began classes virtually three weeks ago, but Tuesday was the first time she set foot on the new elementary school’s campus. More than that, she said it was the first time she had seen so many people since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools and normal ground to a halt back in March.
“I’m ready to see somebody because I haven’t really been able to go outside ‘cause of this virus,” Juliette said. “It’s kind of sad, but now I’ll get to see at least some people, you know, standing in front of you.”
Tens of thousands of students across greater Houston reported back to their classrooms on Tuesday, marking the largest return to campuses in about six months. More than a dozen local districts began in-person instruction this week, including Katy, Cypress-Fairbanks, Spring Branch, Klein, Pasadena and Conroe ISDs.
The districts had pushed back
the start of their school years until after Labor Day or had students begin instruction online, hoping the COVID-19 infection rate and number of hospitalizations would decrease.
Houston ISD, the state’s largest district, also returned to class Tuesday in an online-only format. The district plans to remain virtual for at least the first six weeks of the year.
Almost immediately, families were greeted by a technical glitch that caused trouble logging into the HUB, HISD’s central location for accessing classwork. District officials said a web server host, Blackboard Inc., experienced an issue that crashed HISD’s website, but families were notified of an alternate link to the HUB about an hour later.
In a statement, a Blackboard official said the company planned for increased traffic Tuesday, but “the patterns of usage exceeded what we anticipated.”
While the vast majority of HISD students stayed home, a small percentage lacking at-home computer and Internet access were allowed to spend the day at one of 36 “learning centers” opened by the district and churches across the city. Despite distributing nearly 100,000 computers, tablets and hotspots in the past six months, HISD officials estimated about 12,200 students did not have technology at home by Tuesday.
HISD officials did not specify how many students went to learning centers Tuesday, though only 50 children attended three locations open to the media.
Shortly before 7:30 a.m., Dequandria Russell and her 8-yearold son, Jermiah, arrived at a learning center hosted by Trinity United Methodist Church in Third Ward. About a dozen HISD staff members and church volunteers cheered upon their arrival, ushering them into a building arranged for 50 students.
Inside, students were placed in two rooms at computers spaced several feet apart. Mask-clad HISD administrators and support staffers buzzed around, helping keep the children connected and on task.
“My main focus was, I can’t give my son what the teachers can, so I was very worried about him not coming to school,” Russell said.
While the infection rate is at its lowest point since June, Harris County health officials had warned that it still is too early to bring students back without risking more outbreaks. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Public Health Executive Director Umair Shah set recommended benchmarks for schools to begin reopening, but it still could take weeks to reach them.
After a handful of districts reopened their campuses for inperson instruction, some schools reported cases of students and staff testing positive for COVID-19. In those instances, students and staff who shared a classroom with an infected person were told to self-quarantine and switch to remote learning.
A school nurse at Katy ISD’s
Morton Ranch High died of the virus Friday. KHOU reported she was hospitalized on Aug. 8, and Katy ISD teachers and staff did not report back to campuses until Aug. 7 and Aug. 10.
Some school leaders and parents argue that children are at lower risk of experiencing complications due to the coronavirus and that the academic and social aspects of in-person education outweigh the potential health risks. Ken Gregorski, superintendent of Katy ISD, said the district took as many safety precautions as it could so students could come back.
“In-person instruction, there is no substitute for that,” Gregorski said. “Being in front of that teacher, having that interaction, talking to your peers. I think that’s what everybody is excited about.”
About 40,000 Katy ISD students were expected to go back to their schools Tuesday, while roughly 43,000 opted to keep learning remotely through the district’s new Katy Virtual Academy.
For Vanessa and Dustin Trautwein, the choice to send their kids
“In-person instruction, there is no substitute for that. … I think that’s what everybody is excited about.”
Katy ISD Superintendent Ken Gregorski
back was made easier after consulting with their doctors. Fifth grader Ansley was eager to go back, but 5-year-old twins Brantley and Brynley were diagnosed with asthma when they were 1. One of Brantley’s asthma attacks was so bad he had to stay in a hospital for nearly two weeks and was put on a ventilator. They consulted with the twins’ breathing specialist and pediatrician before opting to send them back.
“Their doctors, both of them, said the sooner they get back to school the better. That was their recommendation,” Dustin said.
Teachers at their school and across Katy ISD are dedicated 100 percent to their in-person students or 100 percent virtual. Gregowski said high school teachers could teach several class periods in-person and another few just for their online students, creating a clear separation between the two programs.
That is not the case at Spring Creek High School in Spring Branch ISD. Teachers there and in other districts instruct students in the classroom and online at the same time. Only some of the students who chose in-person instruction were on campus Tuesday — the campus is operating on an A/B schedule this week in which two groups of students alternate between in-person and online instruction on separate days.
Only two students sat in Ryan Beeler’s Advance Placement environmental science class during seventh period Tuesday, while 11 logged in virtually. He had two screens pulled up on his desk: one showed the faces of his students on Zoom while the other let him track their progress on a warm-up assignment in real time.
Although he and his students started the school year virtually two weeks ago, and this is his eighth year teaching, he said it all feels new.
“I felt like a brand-new teacher when we started just on Zoom, and today I felt like a brand-new teacher again,” Beeler said. “All the best practices I developed over eight years do not apply now.”
It also felt different to Jonathan Garcia, who sat in the front row of Beeler’s class, and watched the teacher divide his attention between students learning from home and the two in his classroom.
“It’s the human interaction part of it,” the 17-year-old said. “It’s more engaging. Humans communicate both through talking and through their bodies. When you’re in person, you can just see that. It just feels more normal.”