Shelby County students log in to new school year
Andrea Jones planned to wake her three school-age kids up by 7:15 Monday morning, giving them 45 minutes to get ready before the 8 o’clock virtual bell. They were awake an hour ahead of her, at 5.
By 7:30, they were at three separate desks in the revamped sitting area upstairs. She was on stand-by as they prepared to log in. Their dad, Eric Jones, watched on as the clock struck 8.
“This is something different, ain’t it,” he said.
Khila Harris, 15, Eric Harris, 12, and
Kaylee Jones, 9, are all Shelby County Schools students in the age of COVID-19. Although Eric and Kaylee’s teachers kept up virtual learning through the spring, Khila’s year more or less ended when school buildings shut down in March, Andrea said. By Monday, it was time to take what was learned from that haphazard remote learning approach and apply it to a brand-new, structured virtual school year.
“Here,” Eric said into the quiet room of his house, toward his teacher and other classmates also present on the screen.
He and his siblings were among the 80% of the district’s students who successfully logged on Monday.
No major outages or technical glitches were reported on the first day, district spokesperson Jerica Phillips said. Superintendent Joris Ray said school administration has been instructed to communicate with families for the 10% of students who have yet to pick up their laptop or tablet. Ray reiterated Monday that students won’t return to school buildings until the COVID-19 conditions have improved.
In spite of all the differences this August, the excitement for the new
school year was familiar.
Instead of buying classroom supplies, the family went to Michael’s for supplies to paint their own desks. Pink for Khila, a green slime design with letter Es for Eric and a rainbow of organized pocket folders for Kaylee. They arranged their desks along the three walls of what used to be a sitting room upstairs.
“I woke up excited for learning new things,” Kaylee said. “Now I’m in fourth grade, and in third grade, it was kinda easy, but I know fourth grade is gonna be a little harder. It’s a new level.”
Khila woke up excited to start honors chemistry — she wants to be a doctor when she grows up — but was aware of how different the school year could be.
“I’m a visual learner and I like to be one-on-one. I just hope I try my best and get it,” Khila said, still hoping for all As.
Andrea was able to attend an orientation for Kaylee’s class, but technical issues prevented her from accessing Khila and Eric’s orientations prior to the first day. By the end of the day Monday, though, Kaylee was the only one of the three who was completely unable to access one of the “classrooms” she was supposed to be in on the Microsoft Teams platform.
Thirty minutes into the school day, Andrea was pleased that so few glitches had taken place.
“I thought my blood pressure would have been a bit higher than what it is,” she said at the time, crediting the district for making a thoughtful transition to virtual learning.
Between her experience home schooling and her and Eric’s underlying health conditions, she’d planned for her kids to be learning from home this fall anyway.
Her child care business took a hit from the pandemic, but the lower enrollment — Andrea had just one extra child to care for Monday — has meant more time to spend with her kids.
“What I enjoy the most and what I think the pandemic brought about a lot with us, is a little more closeness ... Being able to reflect on how important it is to spend time with each other with so much going on,” Andrea said. “No one knows how life may turn out.”