Teachers glad to see ‘beginning of the end’
Still-grieving Hayden-Winkelman staff vaccinated
In the 10 months since children left Shirley McCauley’s library for the last time, the longtime librarian acquired a new favorite book: “I Really Want the Cake.”
“I haven’t been able to read it to the kids yet,” she said, thumbing through the pink paperback’s pages in an empty school library, a Band-Aid stuck to her right arm.
McCauley, a librarian in the Hayden-Winkelman Unified School District in eastern Arizona, has been busy the past 10 months. She hasn’t acquired just one new book, but more than 500 in an effort to build a new library for the district’s elementary schoolers when they return.
On Thursday, McCauley and her colleagues were one step closer to returning to the classroom and bringing back in-person readalouds, one of the librarian’s favorite activities. With National Guard members assisting, one by one, teachers and school staff members sat in the massive open entranceway of Hayden High School for their vaccinations. They were nervous, but ready.
“This is not a perfect situation for learning, but we do believe that we’re gonna fill those gaps.” Jeff Gregorich Superintendent of the Hayden-Winkelman Unified School District
“I think it would hurt more if I went and just pinched myself,” Jeff Gregorich, the district’s superintendent joked after the shot. “I’m just glad to see the beginning of the end.”
The Hayden-Winkelman community has had a harrowing year.
The two towns, Hayden and Winkelman, are next to each other. On the edge of Gila County, the community encompasses a compact square of land in a rural part of the state, near Asarco’s copper mining operations. It is surrounded by untouched desert, and the school district has shrunk in enrollment over the past few decades, from 520 students to about 300, enough of a loss to leave some district buildings unused.
The towns’ residents have lost countless neighbors since the pandemic began. Everyone knows someone who died, according to the teachers and school staff members getting vaccines.
And in a place where Gregorich says the school district is the heart of the community, everybody knew Kimberley Lopez Chavez Byrd.
She taught Theresa Oropeza, an office staff member, when she attended elementary school. Then Byrd taught two of Oropeza’s children. She helped
Priscilla Torres-Westrope cope with her sister’s death. Mary Ann Velasco said Byrd was her best friend.
Byrd died at the end of June after battling COVID-19 on a ventilator. She’d taught virtual summer school in the same classroom with two other teachers, who also came down with the virus. Her photo still hangs at the entrance of the Leonor Hambly School, where she taught first grade.
“We don’t forget,” Velasco, who works in the school’s office, said. “We’re constantly reminded.”
Velasco wore two masks layered on top of one another to get the vaccine. She darts in and out of the grocery store when it’s time to get supplies. She’s cautious because of Byrd’s death, and because her husband has heart issues.
In the months since Byrd died, grief over the educator and others has only felt sharper to the ones who survived. And the grief has multiplied. This week, a retired Hayden-Winkelman teacher died. Last month, Frank Martinez, a man who used to wave to school staffers, passed away, Torres-Westrope, a high school Spanish teacher, said.
“The count of how many people I know that were affected or had the virus — I lost count at 12,” she said.
It’s hard for the community to recover when the deaths don’t stop.
As is the case in dozens of Arizona school districts, Hayden-Winkelman students have gone to school online since the pandemic initially closed schools in March.
Because the community has been battered by COVID-19, teachers said they’ve heard few protests about the decision to remain closed to in-person learning. But the work of educating children continues.
Hayden-Winkelman teachers trained to teach online for a month straight in the summer, Gregorich said. The district also is planning more intervention for struggling students, including summer school. Educators felt prepared for the job of remote teaching but are worried about their students.
“This is not a perfect situation for learning, but we do believe that we’re gonna fill those gaps,” Gregorich said.
The first dose of the vaccine sets a path back to in-person learning, which will not resume until teachers receive the second dose and likely until community transmission rates, currently sky-high across the state, decline.
The first shot only takes seconds. Torres-Westrope was optimistic she said as she received it. She hopes the vaccine will help bring an end to what has been a long, terrible 10 months.
“I feel blessed to be a part of it,” she said.
The vaccination process includes a 15-minute period where the teachers must sit and wait before they leave, in case they experience an allergic reaction. Chairs in the high school were spaced out 6 feet for them to wait. Some teachers sat and chatted with each other. The event was like a small reunion: Many hadn’t seen each other in months.
After her 15 minutes was up, McCauley made a beeline to the high school’s library, with more work to do.
The new library McCauley helped create is at the elementary school, just down the block. It’ll be a space for students who come to school early to read and relax before class begins.
She wants to see her students in-person again, instead of over Zoom.
“We all want to get the school back up and running,” she said. “I’m anxious to get the kids down to the new library.”