Teachers and kids, suddenly parted, try to reconnect at the kitchen table

When the crisis came, school ended so abruptly that most teachers in the Peninsula School District didn’t even get to say goodbye to their students.

Teachers had been told that Monday, March 16, would be the last day of school. But as coronavirus infection spread rapidly, even that day was canceled.

“I was crying,” said Katie Strother, who teaches kindergarten at Minter Creek Elementary. “I was so upset. I was going make them pancakes, a treat that they loved. I had all these plans for activities I would send them home with. We were going to spend the day just loving and being with each other.”

The district’s 9,000 students still haven’t returned, leaving books, backpacks and even cellos and trumpets behind. Strother’s kindergartners never got their pancakes.

Now, two weeks into the school shutdown, Strother and her colleagues are re-connecting with their scattered students, using internet tools like the video site Zoom and the homework scheduler Schoology to create virtual classrooms. It’s not really school, but it’s the next best thing.

And because teachers are working from home, too, they’re often trying to work while the baby is crying, the 5-year-old is demanding attention and there’s a pot boiling on the stove.

“This week my focus has been on contacting the families and making sure everyone is OK,” said Strother, 24, who is in her third year teaching. “I was able to reach every kiddo in my class, and talk to their parents about how they are doing.”

She set up a Zoom chat with her kindergartners and read to them from her favorite book, “The Bad Seed,” about a naughty character who resolves to be better.

“They loved it,” she said. “They could see my face, and kids were telling me they loved me and missed me.”

School districts have been cautioned by the state Superintendent of Public Instruction not to attempt actual, graded course work online, because of concerns that not every student will be able to participate. So Peninsula teachers are concentrating on activities that keep kids thinking and learning on their own.

“This week I had my kids make ‘leaf people’ from leaves they could find in the yard,” said Ms. Strother. “And I made up a fun little game they can do with shapes. I give them a shape, and they try to find something in the house that matches it.”

Technology is great, but it can be a limiting factor with younger students, Strother said.

“The young ones can’t use the computers by themselves, so there needs to be a parent there to help them, and that can be a hardship,” she said.

Keeping it real

Teachers are trying to keep activities interactive, so the kids know they’re involved, said Hannah Hollet, who teaches 6th grade language arts and social studies at Kopachuck Middle School.

“Instead of just saying, ‘Go to this web site,’ we’re having kids send things back to us, to share with us what they’ve discovered,” she said. “While we don’t grade them, we can still comment and show them we’re engaged.”

All of Hollet’s sixth-graders have school-issued Chromebooks, so connection hasn’t been a problem. She had them do some writing, using Google docs, and they’ve had group discussions on the Facebook-like pages of Schoology.

“The nice thing about that is the kids can interact with each other,” she said. “It’s almost like a digital classroom. And we’re trying to keep it light-hearted. Kids have a lot of heaviness on their hearts right now.”

One day, she asked her kids to send her a meme or an emoji showing how they were feeling, and got “some really funny ones — tongues sticking out, a tired dog laying on its back. The kids really enjoyed that, and it helped show we are all in the same boat.”

Some kids are asking, “Do I have to do this?” she said, but out of 120 students in her several classes, she’s had about 70 percent participation online.

“We’re really trying to find creative moments to engage our students,” Hollet said. “In my social studies class, I’m having my students do a digital journal. I’m telling them, ‘Some day you will tell your grandchildren about this. So write about what you are doing at home. Write about the chocolate chip cookies. Write about the board games at the kitchen table. You’re living history.”

Hollet is in her 8th year teaching at Kopachuck, where her husband, Scott, also teaches. They have two children, Olivia, 14, who is an 8th-grader at Kopachuck, at Max, 18, a high-school senior. Both are studying at home.

“There is a lot of education going on in the Hollet house right now,” laughed their mom. “We are exhausted at the end of the day. As exciting as the technology is, it really takes it out of you.”

Scott Hollet teaches science, and he’s using Zoom to meet with this classes. The kids are on their Chromebooks and iPads.

“On any given day, all four of us are at the kitchen table trying to use our computers,” Ms. Hollet said. “We can’t all Zoom at the same time — there isn’t enough bandwidth — so the cry goes up, ‘Everybody off the computer!”

Happy birthday, via Zoom

Ashley Trinh, who teaches at Discovery Elementary, set up her first Zoom session with her first-graders last week. To her delight, every child in her class of 23 was able to get online.

“Oh, they were so excited!” she said. “They were waving and all wanting to talk at once.”

Trinh asked them to talk about what they were doing at home, and asked each of them to bring a book they were reading at home to the next session.

“Just getting them to talk about what they are experiencing, that helps them to understand that everybody is going through the same thing.”

Somehow, the kids had learned that it was Trinh’s birthday, so they all held up hand-made birthday cards for her to see, and sang “Happy Birthday” on Zoom.

“Of course, I burst into tears,” she said. “That is one birthday I will never forget.”

Trinh showed her class how to write to her on Google docs, and shared some links to online education sites they can use on their own.

“Everybody is still so new at this, we’re sort of making it up as we go along,” she said. “Next week, I have a stronger plan to send home more ideas and give parents more direction.”

She suggests that parents let their kids follow their interests, and try to combine learning and play.

In first grade, “they should be reading and doing math games,” she said. “If their parents have the time and energy and opportunities, the younger ones can paint rocks or do sidewalk chalk paintings — any kind of activity that keeps them active and creating.”

Originally from Oakland, Calif., Trinh is her 15th year of teaching. Like many of her colleagues, she has children of her own at home. Annabelle, 11, is in the 3rd grade and Theo is a first-grader.

“They’re very active,” she said, with an audible eye-roll. “They jump in on my meetings and come barreling through the door when I’m talking to someone.”

She said she tries to get the started on their schoolwork in the morning and keep them at it for a couple of hours, although she allows breaks for bicycling outdoors.

“Annabelle is pretty independent,” she said. “She’s older and knows how school works. She can use Schoology and manage all the different folders. For my son, we’ve been working on spelling worksheets, math worksheets, and some stuff I just made up.”

Sometimes the kids get antsy, she said, especially when it’s too cold to go outside.

“But I feel like they’re settling in,” she said. “I’ve told them they need to treat each other nicely, because they’re going to have to be best friends for a long time!”

Gone in the first hour

Dara Anderson, a mother on the Key Peninsula, made elaborate plans for home-schooling her two children, Ryan, 12, and Camrynn, 10.

“It was gone in the first hour,” she laughed. “I started with Ryan’s math, and realized I didn’t even know where to start.”

Ryan, a sixth-grader at Kopachuck Middle School, ended up doing his own math.

“Now we just go with the flow,” said Anderson. “We try to do at least a couple of hours a day of reading and math. Sometimes we do it in the morning, sometimes the afternoon. And we do a lot of “virtual field trips” on YouTube.”

Anderson checked out “Too Cool for School,” the Facebook group started by Gig Harbor parents, but said she found the flow of tips, games and activities a little overwhelming.

“It was almost too much information,” she said. “I decided to stick with what they are already learning.”

The family lives on acreage near Minter Creek, so there is plenty of yard work to do when the kids get cabin fever, she added.

And they’re getting great support from their teachers, Anderson said.

“My son has six different teachers, and they all reached out to him to make sure he’s doing okay. The teachers have really been great.”

Luck and foresight

At St. Nicholas Catholic School, foresight and a lucky break helped its 154 students jump into online learning without skipping a beat, said principal Felicia Read.

“We kind of saw it coming,” said Read. “We were in touch with the archdiocese and saw what was happening in Seattle schools. Fortunately, that Thursday was already scheduled as an in-service day for teachers, so we spent that day preparing.

“It was a long day,” she added. “Everybody stayed late.”

When the students came back Friday, teachers were able to send them home with everything they needed to engage with the school online, using Google Classrooms, Zoom and another app called See-Saw, which is similar to Schoology.

St. Nicholas had already done a technology survey of all its families, Read said, to determine who had access to the internet, computers and laptops at home. She also knew how many people were working at home, whether there was a college student home on break, and other details likely to effect usage.

And because it isn’t bound by the same state restrictions on “doing school” as public schools, teachers were able to stick to their lesson plans, make assignments and grade them, she said.

“Teachers post their learning plans by 9 a.m. and most kids have by 8 p.m. to complete them, so that gives them time to do other things during the day, go outside to play and so forth,” she said. “And we’re pretty lenient with the younger ones, kindergarten through 3rd grade, as long as they’re communicating.”

Zoom, the video conferencing app, is a useful tool, she said, “Because you can see which kids are ‘getting it,’ and which are having trouble, just as you can do by walking around the classroom.”

And it’s helping the faith-based school hang together as a community.

“using video, we can continue to say our prayers together,” she said.

Magical learning time

Ashley Trinh, the first-grade teacher, says she is sad to be missing the “magical learning time” in the spring of the school year, when six-year-olds seem to suddenly blossom.

“It happens about this time every year, when the kids get back from spring break, and things just seem to click. Parents say, ‘Oh, my goodness, I can’t keep up with my child anymore.’ Now I can’t be with them for that, and that’s sad.”

“There will definitely be a lot of review in the fall, when my kids enter the next grade,” she added. “I expect some regression, just as there is during the “summer slide,” as we call it. But we’ll try to do the most we can to keep them learning.”

What if the school shutdown lasts all year? Will the kids be ready for the next grade?

“Yes, they will,” said Hannah Hollet firmly. “They’re going to be ready.”

Her students at Kopachuck Middle School “may not have every single skill, but they will be ready to quickly catch up. We’re going to be focused on filling in any gaps — and teachers are masters at filling gaps.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 12:00 AM.