Rapp students adjust to a new reality
Last summer no fewer than nine different task forces wrestled with how to reopen Rappahannock County’s public schools in the middle of a pandemic. They considered what kind of safety rules and equipment would be needed, how bus rides and school lunches would have to change, and how teachers could effectively adapt their lessons to virtual classes — something that couldn’t be done last March when Gov. Ralph Northam suddenly closed all Virginia public schools.
The resulting safety precautions have largely been successful. Since August, three students and two staff members have tested positive for COVID-19. The shift to online learning, however, and limited social interactions when students are at school has proven more challenging.
In October, Rappahannock High School Principal Jimmy Swindler sent an email to teachers calling for an all-hands-on-deck “student reboot” because at that point, the school was experiencing a failure rate of more than 40 percent.
“For the first nine weeks, everyone was trying to get their footing,” said School District Superintendent Dr. Shannon Grimsley. “Teachers and staff and students. It was a huge learning experience for everybody.”
THE LATEST
It became clear that many of the failing grades were due to students not finishing assignments while working from home at least three days a week. For a lot of kids, it was a rough adjustment.
Grimsley said the situation made it difficult for teachers to evaluate how much students were actually learning.
“In this scenario where we have so many remote learners, it becomes a question of whether the grades capture what students know and understand, or if the grades more reflect their remote learning behavior. That’s the crux of the issue,” she said.
So the district began to allow struggling students to come into the schools to work with teachers on Wednesdays – which had been an all-remote learning day. Now, almost 100 elementary and high school students are taking advantage of the more “individualized instruction,” according to Grimsley.
Students are also now able to attend Saturday study halls at the schools. It’s primarily an opportunity for them to use the high-speed internet connection. But that’s been less popular, and may be offered only every other weekend next semester.
Grimsley said her staff helped students set up at-home schedules so they have more structure in their virtual learning. Teachers have become more stringent in enforcing assignment deadlines than they were earlier in the year. But students, with their parents’ permission, can choose to go pass-fail in courses where they complete 70 percent of the work.
The adjustment to the safety rules seems to have gone more smoothly. “To my surprise, the masks were not as big a deal as we thought they would be,” said Kathy Sickler, the school district’s social worker. “We did have several months of mask-wearing in the community before they returned to school. So we haven’t seen resistance, even among the younger kids.”
It helps that teachers are giving students mask breaks, where they can go outside and walk around mask-free for a bit, or go into the gym and spread out.
Grimsley said the district was also able to use a grant from the state to upgrade the buildings’ HVAC systems in November.
“I think in terms of the flu and colds, we may be healthier this year than we’ve ever been,” she added.
But emotionally and socially, Grimsley said, the pandemic’s ripple effects have clearly taken a toll.
“Anxiety and depression are on the rise among our students,” she said. “It’s not a good situation for some of our at-risk students. And, even some of our students who you wouldn’t have considered at-risk before are really struggling.”
WHAT’S NEXT
One welcome development is the return of high school athletics. Boys and girls basketball is back, and wrestling matches are scheduled to start in January. The canceling of football and other fall sports exacerbated the students’ sense that a big part of their social lives has been lost, Sickler said.
But the revival of sports won’t be normal. Due to the latest round of restrictions imposed by the governor in response to a recent coronavirus spike in the state, only 25 spectators will be permitted to attend indoor events. The games will be livestreamed online.
“It’s going to be a tough thing for our students … not having many spectators or family members there,” Grimsley said.
The impact of social distancing has been particularly difficult for seniors, who see what they had hoped to be the highlight of their teen years slipping away. The school has made a point of arranging special events for them
– a cookout, a doughnut social, a day when they could paint their parking spaces.
Sickler said that in the coming semester, if and when precautions can ease, seniors will be the first to benefit. “We’ll give them any kind of social treats that we can,” she said. “Seniors will be the first ones to get lunchroom privileges when it’s safe to do so.”
But much remains unclear about scheduling traditional events, such as the senior banquet and the prom.
“The social part of school is gone,” said Sickler. “People may walk around smiling, but kids tell me that school’s not much fun.”
Grimsley said she had hoped to be able to shift lower elementary school classes to a schedule of four in-person days a week in January, and then start phasing in higher grades. That plan, however, is on hold for now, although the school board is expected to reconsider it later this month, based on where things stand with the pandemic.
She said the school district has been trying to accommodate students and parents who want more in-school days. In some classes, that hasn’t been possible due to the social distancing restrictions, but in other cases, there’s been more flexibility.
Overall, the percentage of students having only remote learning has dropped from 23 percent in August to 17 percent by the end of the first semester. Also, a survey taken in December found that more remote students want to switch to a hybrid or four in-person day schedule. If all those requests were met – and some can’t be – the share of all-remote students would drop to 14 percent.
There’s also a growing desire among students to not feel so isolated.
“The current situation is definitely disassociating them from their peers. Kids are so separated all the time,” said Grimsley. “They’re yearning for that time with their friends.”
That said, she’s been impressed by how well students have stuck with following the rules that have so profoundly altered their school lives.
“That’s what has surprised me the most, how well they’re doing in adapting to all the changes,” Grimsley said. “I think the adults may be having a harder time with it.
“The kids are managing that. I think they understand what we’re dealing with, how serious it is, and that we all need to help each other.”