Zooming In
PUSD begins new school year virtually
A couple drops of rain began to fall during the final hours of Thursday morning, but rather than seeing students race for cover to keep their first day of school outfits clean and dry, campuses remained quiet and almost still.
Thursday was the first day of school for those in Porterville Unified School District but because Tulare County remains on the state’s monitoring list for high COVID-19 case numbers, students began class virtually.
At Vandalia Elementary
School, students began the school year with a drive-thru pickup of materials and Chromebook.
Teachers met students and their parents and passed out school devices, workbooks and learning supplies at the drivethru event.
“We were all so excited to see our students today,” Vandalia principal Laura Vera said. “We wish we could begin our year in a traditional way, but will be happy to see them on Zoom lessons daily. It may seem like schools are closed, but we are open and ready
to teach students grade level standards and support our families.”
For PUSD, the first days of school are known as Induction Days and are used to assess the needs of students. Students were still required to show up for each of their classes virtually but formal instruction doesn’t begin until Monday, Aug. 24.
In her third period Earth and Space class, Granite Hills High School science teacher, Victoria Delarge, got 80 percent attendance and spent the first day getting to know her students.
Using her Star Wars collection and a big leprechaun hat to show her students what she liked and how she planned to connect with them, Delarge assigned them a survey that asked them a variety of questions including what type of devices they had access to and what makes them smile.
“The goal today, with our teachers and for the Granite community, is to connect with our kids and then find out how we need to support them,” GHHS principal Apolinar Marroquin said.
Induction days go beyond introducing students to their new virtual classrooms and rules, but they’re also important to see how each student is dealing with changes caused by COVID and to let students know their teachers are there for them.
“(We’re) finding out how they’re doing,” Marroquin said. “Wellness check. Building relationships. How has COVID impacted your family? And also reinforce the fact that this second go-around with distance learning is going to be better. We’re committed to a better second time around here with distance learning because the last time around was really emergency learning.”
Marroquin noted things were mostly running smoothly but some teachers were having trouble getting their students logged in because of network issues, but the point of these early days was to discover these problems and have them fixed before instruction began.