The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
OFFICIALS REFLECT School districts say pandemic strengthened learning
Government, school leaders trade tried and true methods for innovation
On March 16 last year, school districts closed around the state for the first time during the novel coronavirus pandemic due to regulations enforced out of Governor Mike DeWine’s office.
Announced on March 12, school districts only had four days to transition from full in-person learning to online classes, which brought on new challenges unforeseen by area schools.
Now district superintendents look back at this time a year ago about the stressors, anxieties and pressures of making quick decisions early into the health crisis.
Amherst
At Amherst Schools, Superintendent Steve Sayers said there were whisperings of uncertain things to come a few days before DeWine’s announcement.
He said discussions had already begun March 9 of the possibility of schools shutting down at a countywide superintendent’s meeting, and again during an Ashland Leadership Academy Seminar that weekend.
“I remember reflecting on what this is going to look like,” Sayers said.
Upon returning back to school that week, he said meetings were held with Assistant Superintendent Mike Molnar and the district’s technology team to devise a plan for online learning.
Sayers said the district was then meeting with the president of the Amherst Teachers Association to review plans prior to DeWine’s announcement.
“Everybody kind of knew something as brewing, that something was happening,” he said of the district’s staff. “Nobody was sure what it was going to look like, or what was going to happen.”
Once the announcement was made, Sayers said the transition and decisions leading the district to do so were fast, with Chromebooks soon distributed to students and teachers taking their lessons online.
“It all happened relatively
quickly... none of us knew how long the schools were going to be closed,” Sayers said.
That uncertainty continued throughout the rest of last school year, with COVID-19 halting intentions to be back in school by spring break or the end of the school year.
“This was a very challenging and uncertain time,” Sayers said. “I knew that our staff, working together with them, somehow, some way, we would be able to figure out a way to figure out the best of it.”
However, it was the summer between last school year and the current one that proved most challenging.
“That was one of my most stressful summers in my 34 years in education,” Sayers said.
But through the stress and anxiety, he said he is proud of the district’s staff and administration for keeping instruction going at the district.
“Our staff is an incredible
group of people,” Sayers said. “They have an almost uncanny ability to work through adversity and work through difficult or challenging situations.”
What helped them through the past year was focusing not on what couldn’t be done, but what they could do during the pandemic.
“Although it was so uncertain and so stressful back in August and September as we were getting the school year started, in hindsight... they’re so glad that we opened up and provided the plan that we did,” Sayers said.
Vermilion
Vermilion Schools Superintendent Phil Pempin said he believes his district began to understand the severity of the pandemic last year as national coverage was increasing.
“When the news was making the announcements of the schools closing around the country, you start to pay attention,”
he said. “At that point, this pandemic is looking like it’s making an impact, and it’s a matter of time before it comes here.”
Discussions began between administrators shortly before DeWine’s announcement, with Chromebook distribution for students planed for fully-online schooling.
“For more than a decade, our students have worked with that technology, our teachers have worked with that technology, that gave us a level of preparedness,” Pempin said. “Some other districts didn’t have that.”
Looking back at the initial plans following the closure of schools, Pempin said if the district were to do it again, not much else would
change.
“Safety was our number one priority,” he said. “We wouldn’t have done anything much different.”
With not knowing when the district would return to school, Pempin said hope was found in other districts in the area returning to hybrid or full in-person learning later into the pandemic.
Additionally, there’s many changes that were implemented in the beginning of the pandemic that Pempin said will following through the district after the virus subsides, like different bus routes, snow days, the number of lockers at Vermilion High School and a class transition time that will most likely stay cut from four to two minutes.
“Overall, there’s a lot to be learned from this, a lot of positive things out of thing,” he said. “It gave them (teachers) a greater degree of confidence.”
Avon Lake
For Avon Lake School District, Superintendent Bob Scott has consistently said the pandemic went beyond anything they could have predicted as the statewide shutdown continually redefined normality in an odd year.
The district returned to in-person classes on Aug. 31 with a hybrid model with about 17 percent of the district’s nearly 4,000 students initially opting for remote learning.