New school year might look familiar for the Wildcats
El Dorado School District
While El Dorado School District Superintendent Jim Tucker is optimistic about the 2021/2022 school year, he admits that things might not look too different from how they did last year.
“I think there’s going to be some similarities. I think we still need to be very cautious,” Tucker said. “We’ll see how things go. Hopefully we don’t have to close down.”
By the end of July, the ESD already had plans published on its website for dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including recommendations for students to mask up, implement respiratory etiquette like covering coughs and sneezes with their elbows and practice good hand hygiene.
The plans are in line with state and federal public health recommendations for schools; however, as of late July, a new state law that bans schools from enacting mask mandates for students and staff on campus prevents some of those recommendations from having teeth.
“We’re probably not going to allow water fountains to be used like last year. We’ll keep isopropyl alcohol bottles on hand for staff to sanitize desks and chairs. That’s pretty much all we have right now,” Tucker said.
Tucker said if the ban on mask mandates was lifted, he would support it.
“I would be for it, honestly. I know there’s a lot of people – there’s different opinions on it – but if there’s something we can do in the school to make them safer … Anything we can do, I think it’s a plus,” he said.
The district does have major plans in place to address some of the disruption caused by the pandemic during the last school year, both educationally and in students’ mental health. Education intervention
“We have a school-wide – district-wide, actually – after-school tutoring program that we’re going to implement next year … We’ll also have some classes at the elementary schools that will help those students catch up and hopefully even get ahead,” Tucker said. “We’ll also have some programs to take place in the fall. We’ll have about four Saturdays with all-day tutoring. … We’ll do that again in the spring.”
For both the after-school and Saturday tutoring sessions, Tucker said, buses will be run for students who need a ride to or from their schools. The weekend study sessions were actually implemented during the 2020/2021 school year, he noted, and they were successful, something he hopes to see replicated this year.
The schools throughout the district are also adding 15 minutes to daily instruction with longer school days, as well as an eighth period for grades five through 12.
“It used to be, we went from 8 (a.m.) to 3:15 (p.m.). Now we’re going from 7:55 (a.m.) to 3:25 (p.m.),” Tucker explained. “And (the) one (new) period will be intervention.”
Wednesdays will still be early release.
Mental health help As for mental health, Behavior Support Specialist Holly Billings said she believes students could have been impacted emotionally in a number of ways by the pandemic, from the basics of having their routines and faceto-face interactions with peers interrupted to being affected personally by the virus.
“There were students who did have COVID, and during that time, they might have had to be displaced from their family, or they might have had family members with COVID,” Billings explained. “I think that added to their anxiety and stress.”
Since last school year, the district has been working to train educators on how to recognize and respond to students facing mental health troubles.
Billings said all district staff received interactive training through a program called Cognito to address how to interact with students dealing with stress. The district also offers training to staff through the Mental Health First Aid program, which helps educators sense when a student is in a mental health crisis.
“We have some program ready to address students at all grade levels, K through 12, “she said.
Additionally, a direct monitoring program called Lightspeed has been implemented district-wide. If a student searches for a concerning topic on a district computer – for example, Billings said, topics like suicide, self-harm or violence – a screenshot will be taken from their search and sent to their school counselor, day or night.
“It monitors it in real time, so if they Google it at 3 a.m., their counselor will be alerted,” Billings said.
At home, Billings recommended parents work to keep communication lines open with their children, and to try to keep them in a regular routine.
“We’ve all seen the research about sitting down and having dinner with the family, so keeping that connection is important. For students, I think trying to maintain some semblance of a normal routine … staying connected with their families, continuing to do the work they have, trying o be active,” she said. “When we get out of that routine is when things sort of go downhill.”
Billings also noted that the National Suicide Hotline now has a text messaging option, which can be utilized by texting 741-741. The National Suicide Hotline can also be reached over the phone at 1-800-273-8255.
Helping teachers grow New teachers starting this year also have a legup thanks to the district’s New Teacher Induction Program. Stephanie Lowery, who leads the program, said that while this is the third year the program has been in place, it’s the first that it’s been run by the district alone.
“For the first two years, we partnered with a company called New Teacher Center and kind of based our mentoring off their model,” she said. “This year is the first year where we’re kind of taking the best of what we learned from that and contextualizing it within our district. … This year we’re going to use some new tools with our new teachers that we’ve developed ourselves.”
Lowery said many of the educators in the ESD come from non-traditional backgrounds, having studied something other than teaching in college or having worked in other professions before moving to teaching.
“We’ve found that they don’t always have the traditional lingo and language that someone who did go through a teaching program has, so we have sections on that,” she said.
This year, for continuing professional development, instead of cramming all the information the district wants new teachers to know into a few daylong sessions, the district plans to hold after-school workshops throughout the year, with smaller lessons that can be applied immediately.
“For example, before parent-teacher conferences, we’ll teach them about how they might want to have some sort of letter of introduction with them (in the classroom during conferences), but instead of sending them home to write it on their own time, we’ll actually help them draft that letter or any other information,” she said. “So they leave not only with new information, but something crossed off their to-do list instead of added to it.”
Teachers in their first, second and third year in the district are paired with mentors who can help guide and support them as they learn the ins and outs of the job. This year, the district is also focusing on developing the educators who are acting as mentors.
“We have a book we’re all studying together throughout this year that helps us build our skills to be effective mentors – listening skills, what it means to be an adult learner and how adults learn – and then developing those skills through the book study,” Lowery said.
To make sure teachers are becoming comfortable not only in school but in the town as well, the mentorship aspect of the program also includes offering new teachers community connections.
“We pair all the first-year teachers or teachers new to our area with someone in the community that’s volunteered to support them, reach out to them. We also have some activities planned that will help new teachers get out into the community,” Lowery explained. “We hope that this will help, especially young teachers, that this might be their first time away from home other than college, make a connection to our community.”
Through the COVID pandemic, the program has also helped keep both teachers and their mentors up-to-date on the latest technology being utilized in classrooms.
“Even if the mentors themselves were learning the technology at the same time, if they didn’t know, I know they really connected the new teacher with the resources in our district to meet the needs of the blended learning environment,” Lowery said. “The computer support that we have in the district, they also did an excellent job with putting out a weekly newsletter with tips and new things to try and they also had a couple professional development opportunities for teachers throughout the year specifically to learn about tech solutions and ways to use technology in that kind of blended learning environment.” Wildcat Online Academy
New this year is the Wildcat Online Academy, a permanent, full-time online learning program for district students. Tucker said the WOA class-sizes are small this first year.
“There’s some criteria you have to follow to get into it – you have to have been successful last year, either on-site or online. You can’t have done badly in school,” he said.
For elementary students, there are teachers dedicated solely to instructing through WOA. At the middle, junior and high school levels, teachers will split their time, but the blended learning utilized last year, where both on-site and online students were instructed simultaneously, won’t be happening with the WOA.
“Principals are trying to give teachers a period to just do their online class. There’s not really a mix,” Tucker said. “Our teachers will be teaching the exact same curriculum (for on-site and online students).”
All in all, district officials are looking forward to a successful school year.
“We’ve got it going on,” said Melissa Powell, assistant superintendent for the ESD.
School starts for El Dorado students on Tuesday, Aug. 17.