by Garrick Moritz, Gazette
The Covid-19 disease caused by the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the daily lives of people across the world. In Garretson, it’s no different. The Garretson school board hosted an emergency meeting last week, because at the time, the SD Governor Kristi Noem had suspended school statewide for a week. As of Governor Noem’s press briefing on March 24, schools will be closed until May 1st.
Once the board convened, Superintendent Guy Johnson, Elementary Principal Teresa Hulscher, Middle School/High School Principal Chris Long, and Technology Coordinator Matt Schrank briefed the board on what they were doing in the face of this crisis.
“This is an unprecedented situation,” said Supt. Johnson. “Tonight, we’re going to address answers to many questions, but for many of these questions we have no answers. Throughout this crisis our goals are to keep our students and staff as safe as possible and to do our best to keep our students education moving forward. No matter what happens we’re going to stay calm, stay professional, and stay stable. With this virus there are a lot of things that are out of our control, but for the things we can control, we’ll will meet them with professionalism and optimism. This is what our staff as a whole has decided, and I could not be prouder of them all.”
The first item of note Supt. Johnson talked about was approval to provide lunches to Garretson Students. At the time, he had only gotten approval for a sack lunch program, but as of Monday, March 23, the school was approved to provide a breakfast as well. It’s a federal reimbursement program where the school can provide sack breakfasts and lunches to Garretson students.
These meals are for Garretson students only. A student can come to the school in the morning and collect both sack meals, and their name will simply be checked off a list.
Supt. Johnson also said that they will also be working on setting up distribution points to bring those food options to students all around the district, for example in Sherman, and perhaps to a few distribution points to make it easier for rural students to take advantage of this food program. They had already started the sack lunch program that very day and he hoped to have the breakfast program in operation by next week. Per his phone call with the Gazette this past Monday, it was.
Delivery options are still pending, so stay tuned for school announcements in this newspaper or on the Gazette website as to where delivery sites will be located.
“We want to help as many of our students and their families as we can during this crisis,” he said. “This service is for our students only, because of the nature of the program, but we would love to help as many of them as possible.”
Supt. Johnson reported that all teachers are reporting as normal. Education Assistants and other hourly positions were able to come to work last week and assist the janitorial staff in cleaning and sanitizing the entire school building. Administrative Assistants are also helping with janitorial duties in addition to manning the phones to talk with local families.
Next, Principal Hulscher spoke before the board.
“The possibility that this might happen came up in our staff meeting last Wednesday [March 11],” Hulscher said. “Since then we’ve worked on plans on what it might look like should we be closing the school.”
For grades K-5, Hulscher said that the teachers were preparing homework packets for K-5th grade students. She continued, saying that the goal would be to have 90-minutes’ worth of homework a day for elementary students. The next day, (Wednesday, March 18th) and every successive Wednesday until the crisis is over, teachers would be prepping homework packets for collection from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. She said that the goal will be to maintain focus on math and English arts. Though she acknowledges that this is not as ideal as classroom learning, she wants to do everything she can to help maintain skill sets for the younger students. Also, they will be making school supplies for elementary students freely available.
She also discussed the possibility of starting distance learning with 3rd through 5th grade students, but that she would elaborate after Mr. Schrank gave his briefing. She was only leery about doing on-line options because she felt many kids would be spending this time out of school on a lot of screens anyway.
“Some students we know really need this school,” she said. “Seeing one little girl sitting outside our doors, just waiting for us to open the doors for her sack lunch, is going to be locked in my memory for all time and what I associate with part of this crisis. I can’t commend our staff enough for everything they’ve been doing since this began.”
“Last Friday [March 13] seems like two weeks ago,” said Chris Long. “In my twenty years in education, this is the proudest I’ve ever been of our staff. For years I’ve known what a great staff we’ve had in this building. But there is a difference between knowing it, and perhaps taking it for granted, and truly seeing it. Nobody panicked. Everybody came to work on Monday with the attitude that they wanted to get something done. My personnel blew me away. We are in such good shape, especially compared to some districts in our state I’ve heard about. Yes, this emotional and stressful, but our staff has really come through.”
Long said that a few of the MS/HS teachers were already doing distance learning and online resources. Those with experience, and under the leadership of Tech Coordinator Matt Schrank, have made that a 100% participation. Video lessons, Zoom conferencing and classes with students, and online assignments were being drafted and prepared to be sent to all the students while this exile continues. Students will have lessons, do work, and get graded though the use of technology. He said that every weekday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., teachers will be available digitally for their students.
“It’s like the first day of school all over again here,” Long said. “We’re banking on this going on for a while. We are not just planning for week to week, day to day. We’re planning on the long term. If we need to limit big gatherings, then we will, but we will still communicate and make education happen. Some of our teachers had started to use these online tools, but others just haven’t because we haven’t had enough time. That’s always the problem, it’s always what they ask us as administrators for, more time. Well, something good to come out of this virus, we have that time now. Now that we don’t have face to face access to our students, we are learning how to fully utilize these online tools and we will all become better educators for it.”
Tech Coordinator Matt Schrank then gave the board a briefing on how distance learning for the Garretson School District would generally work. He admitted that much of it has been trial and error, but he was confident that he and the administration and teaching staff can make it work.
First, he did surveys of which students did not have internet in their homes. They identified an initial 8 district households that didn’t have internet in their home. When they approached Alliance Communications about it, Alliance volunteered to hook those homes up with internet service and wireless routers, at no cost, to the families of the district until this crisis has abated for anyone who wants or needs it. The school or Alliance will contact (or already has contacted) these families, but anyone who hasn’t gotten the word by now can contact Alliance Communications to get this service.
Schrank then took the board through the processes of what teachers will be doing to create online lessons, the apps they would use, and how they would use them. Schrank took the board through the process of creating an online lesson, a video lesson and online quiz, and a Zoom conference class.
“The kids are ready and eager for this,” Schrank said. “I’ve had several of them contact me asking when they can get it started. The teachers are ready for this. I didn’t see a single teacher object or opt out. They are eager and want to do this too. Getting all the details right are just bumps in the road. We’re ready for this, and we’re going to be ready to do it this way for as long as we have to.”
Schrank said that as of now, the students in grades 6-12 are equipped with school iPads to make all this online learning possible. He said that they have enough devices in reserve to arm 3rd through 5th grade students with one. If school were to stay out longer than just 2 weeks, he and Principal Hulscher would discuss ways to get the elementary on board for more online educational opportunities.
Since the time of this special meeting, all sports activities (practices and events) have been canceled until May 3rd. The fate of other SD state school activities will be decided in the next week, according to SDHSAA Executive Director Dan Swartos. Prom this year has been postponed with no reschedule date proposed at this time.
Supt. Johnson said at the meeting that things are changing rapidly, and he doesn’t know how long this crisis will last. He does not know if the state will require schools to make up time lost into the summer months or if accreditation will be given through these distance learning programs that the district will be starting. The governor did announce on Tuesday, March 24 that state testing requirements will be waived and that the Department of Education will be working with schools to determine what needs to be done to meet educational standards.
“As everyone has already done, I do want to commend and congratulate our staff for good work well done,” he said. “Just because our doors are closed, doesn’t mean any of us are taking time off. Our staff is working and doing the best job to give the best education we can for our students under difficult and unprecedented circumstances. We have done, and will continue to do, everything in our power to educate and care for our students.”
The board thanked all present administrators and teachers for their hard work in the face of this crisis, and then entered an executive session to talk about personnel matters.
