VUSD Elementary Plans To Re-open December 7th & 14th

By Megan Yang

As of now, VUSD made the decision to allow elementary school students back on campus.

Thomas Bair, a 3rd grade teacher at Willow Glen Elementary School, says it has been “very challenging teaching on Zoom.” The VUSD was “ill prepared to have so many students online”, that the online distance learning did not work. The students have “suffered from having to stay home for such a long time”, he says. Bair is used to working with kids “in small groups or individually”, but that is “hard to do [with having to] social distance.” Teacher’s make “personal connections with students and families” in person, but that “does not work on Zoom.” Bair plans to teach in person in the mornings and full distance in the afternoon. “Kids who remain on full distance learning won’t see much difference.”

The students are “excited to come back and to be with other kids… [but it] may be difficult to keep them 6ft away from each other.” Bair says, “Humans are not solitary beings; we need interactions with others.”

“If we can show that we can control the environment… maybe it will be a lesson to the rest of society.” Kids tend to “pay attention to what is right, more so than older students do.” He says, “ … we have to be the leaders and set the example for our students.” In order for all students to be able to return on campus, “everyone must buy in to doing what is expected of them.” Bair says, “It appears as though the adults… need a lesson from the children.”

The new schedule has been an “issue of contention for the teachers from the beginning.” The elementary teacher’s representatives from VUTA “have proposed better schedules and the district leadership has chosen not to listen.” Bair says, “It has always been up to the teachers to make things work and this is no different.” It is “premature to go back before winter break,” but perhaps “it’s a trial run to see how things go,” he says.

Jean Maddox, a 5th grade teacher at Willow Glen Elementary School, says “ … school will not feel or look like it did… I am not sure it has sunk into the students who are coming back.” She is “really happy to have students come back”, but is also “extremely nervous”. The air ventilation is “not up to what it should be [and] it is this way for most elementary schools.” Maddox will have to keep her door open, when the temperature starts becoming more cooler. The play structures will be “off limits” and there will be “no play equipment for [students]” to use during recess.

Maddox says, “ … if elementary schools weren’t coming back in major holidays [it would be safe enough] … I just wish it would be in January.” The major holidays would have been finished and “there would be enough time in between them [before schools reopened].” Having elementary students return to their school’s campus will require them to do a “routine of what is expected”. It would depend on the “parents making sure the kids come prepared to learn.”

Maddox is one of the “fortunate teachers who get to keep most of their class”. Most of the elementary teachers “do not want to lose students” because they bonded with their students through Zoom. Maddox will be a hybrid teacher and she will be teaching full distance learning students in the mornings, while her afternoon class will be in person. “Each of the students will get the same curriculum, it will just be delivered differently.”

There is a time for quiet classrooms, but hearing how kids think “is an important part of learning and guiding [her] teaching.” While students returning to school make Maddox “ … glad to be going back to in person learning”, she has a concern that “it is not completely safe yet… a lot of teachers feel this way.”