The annual School Roundup special section will be included inside the Aug. 19 edition of the Cherokee Scout.
The lessons on the first day of kindergarten at Ranger Elementary/Middle School typically start before the student enters the classroom.
Children are taught classroom procedures, including washing their hands. One thing that will be different this year is the order in which that happens.
“We are just going to have to stay on top of the best hygiene practices,” kindergarten teacher Marla Hincke said.
School will look different as the school year begins Monday. Hincke is staying optimistic, though.
“The first day will be OK,” Hincke said, adding that young children like the structure school provides.
A major change for the first day is that no parents will be allowed in any school buildings. A form will have to be filled out with each child’s temperature, and that temperature will be taken – and a few questions asked – before the student even exits the vehicle.
Dane Rickett, principal at Murphy Elementary School, said the Jump Start program, which started last week, has shown the new procedures do not significantly slow the dropoff process.
Changes students will notice continue with what happens after they exit the car or bus. Once they arrive at school, they will have to go directly to their classrooms. The hallways are marked, reminding students to maintain 6 feet of distance.
Yellow lines in the center of the hallways indicate the space students must keep between them and students walking in the opposite direction. Students will eat breakfast, as well as lunch, in the classroom.
Rickett did not see any students struggling with their masks or the other guidelines while participating in the Jump Start program.
“It really doesn’t seem to bother them,” he said, adding most kids in the program brought their own masks from home and haven’t needed school-supplied ones. “It really seems to be a non-issue.”
Dr. Jeana Conley, superintendent of Cherokee County Schools, said it was good to see children back in class.
“Even though they are wearing masks, I can tell by their eyes that the students and teachers are all smiles,” she said.
Rickett said everyone seems anxious to get back to school.
“I’m actually excited,” he said.
Plans the schools have made to welcome children safely could be changed at any time due to changes made by the state, clarifications made on guidelines or condition changes in the community.
Kindergarten
Before the first day of school, Hincke will talk to each student at least on the telephone. She also hopes to have a face-to-face meeting, even if that meeting is virtually.
Parents will not be allowed in the school to drop off their children, so she wants her face to be familiar to the children as she – hopefully – escorts them into the school.
“My main concern for the first week is just to make sure all are safe, and the students feel secure in being here,” Hincke said. “Let them see school is a safe place to be.”
She has already seen that parents and caregivers have started talking to their children about social distancing and mask wearing. She plans to have catch-phrases and visual cues to help the children follow social distancing and mask guidelines. She thinks there will be “hiccups,” which are most likely to happen when a child is excited or needs help.
“I don’t want it to be negative,” Hincke said. “I don’t want it to be scary or punitive. It’s just that quick reminder.”
For the first few days or so, she’ll have pool noodles to help children see and understand what 6 feet of distance looks like.
“I’m really optimistic that it is not going to be terribly difficult,” Hincke said.
Before getting the opportunity to rearrange furniture in her classroom, she had an idea of how her kindergarten classroom would look like to meet guidelines. Each child will have an assigned seat at the tables so they are properly spaced.
For group time, Hincke was planning to mark spots so the children are spaced apart. As she reads a story, she will project it on the Smart Board so all children can easily see it. Instead of sharing, students will each have their own bucket or box of materials, and anything that is shared – like building blocks – will be cleaned before the next child uses them.
“I’m fortunate to have a very large classroom,” Hincke said.
Elementary schools
Thanks to Jump Start, many classrooms at Murphy Elementary were already rearranged to fit spacing guidelines. Rickett noted how fortunate he was to have many large classrooms, which allowed for possible class sizes even in the teens while following guidelines. Extra individual desks were being placed in classrooms with tables instead of desks.
“We spent weeks measuring classrooms,” he said.
Classrooms with sinks have signage with reminders on how to properly wash hands, while classrooms are equipped with gallon-size jugs of hand sanitizer.
The school also has an isolation room set aside in the office, just in case any child arrives at school sick or becomes sick during the day. The isolation room has drawers filled with personal protective equipment just outside the door, as well as directions on how to use the isolation room.
“It could not be any safer,” Rickett said after explaining all the precautions and plans they’ve made.
On the academic side, he said they are still a public school, and students will be doing classwork five days a week, no matter where they are learning. The new Canvas management system will allow this to happen.
“All students will be doing work at the same time,” Rickett said.
He said the hybrid learning model – in which some students are in-person doing the lesson, while others are watching videos of the teacher and completing lessons at home – does make things more difficult for teachers. He said besides the added time, as teachers have already started working on their videos, that teachers prefer being able to engage and interact with their students.
Rickett also said they do not plan to have assignments on the first day.
“We want to spend time on the front end training students,” he said.
There will be attendance requirements for remote learning with a virtual login that doesn’t require students to be on camera. Students will also be graded for the work they complete, unlike the end of last year.
Teachers planned to spend this week contacting families to make sure students had devices for accessing and completing schoolwork. If they do not have devices, they will arrange a time to get one to them.
Students who are fully remote learning will even have the opportunity to make an appointment to meet with their teachers on Wednesdays if they need in-person help.
“It’s going to be a lot better (than last year’s remote learning),” Rickett said.
Middle and high schools
Murphy High School Principal Jason Forrister explained the hybrid system as all students learning virtually all the time. When in the school building, they’ll also have any support they need from their teachers.
“The important thing is we are focused on providing quality instruction to every student,” Forrister said, adding that extends to students who choose full remote learning.
Students will stay in their classrooms – in their cohort groups – and get scheduled breaks that prevent everyone changing classes at the same time. Regardless of what each student’s schedule reads, students will remain in their grouping, and may working on different courses at the same time within the same classroom.
Lunch will be in the classrooms, but students will have opportunities to take breaks and go outside.
“We just want to make sure everyone is safe,” Forrister said.
The middle and high schools have the same markings on the floors to remind students to maintain 6 feet of distance in the hallways.
Forrister does not expect to see the same scenes at his school that were shared last week from Georgia high schools. In fact, he said he knew the guidelines for reopening schools in North Carolina and Georgia were not the same.
“I don’t look for it to be an issue here,” he said. “A lot of our students are respectful of rules and expectations.”
The high school had a Jump Start program, too, and Forrister said it was
very positive. Students attending were agreeable to the rules for masks and distancing.
The school also had a band camp last week that followed the same guidelines athletic teams had to follow for summer workouts. He wants all students to be able to be involved in the clubs and activities that interest them, as long as it approved by Central Office as an activity that can be done safely under the guidelines.
Forrister said it’s been a long time since the halls have been filled with students, and that teachers thrive on having those students in front of them as they teach. He thinks everyone on the faculty and staff of schools across the county are very excited for schools to reopen.
“I do know all us in Cherokee County, regardless of school level, are committed to the guidelines we’ve been given,” he said. “We care about (the students), and we want to take care of them… Those things are in place, and we’re going to stick to it.”