Students and families digest school district plans for fall

It's not the school year that parents and students would like, but at least it's better than last spring. That's how several families in the Saint Vrain Valley School District feel about new plans for the upcoming school year. Basic information was released by the district last week, though there are still plenty of questions. Details may be revealed in a couple of weeks when the final plan will be released.

"It's school, with only the worst parts," said Ben Goff who will be a senior at Niwot High. "It feels like we're going to have three snow days a week."

Grades 10-12 will go to school two days a week and every other Friday while freshmen will be on campus full time. The other days will be live, remote learning.

A similar plan is in place for middle school with sixth graders going every day and seventh and eighth graders split into A and B groups that alternate between online and in-person learning. Elementary students will be back to school full time.

Elementary School

Third grader Millie Peterson is excited to see her friends and teachers at Niwot Elementary when she arrives on Aug. 18. She said online school was confusing at times. The return of in-person learning will give back a foundational part of education that used to happen every day in the classroom. "If you're not quite sure what you're actually supposed to be doing, you can say, 'I don't really understand this,'" Millie said.

Her mom, Sally Peterson, is also looking forward to the return of in-person schooling. "As much as her teachers tried so hard, I just don't think they got as much learning," she said, adding that real school will be good for parents too. "Certainly, I don't want to teach her everything. Good thing I can do math."

Things will look different when Millie arrives at school. Students in every grade will need to wear a cloth mask when they get to the building and will be expected to put it on during certain times of the day. Millie isn't crazy about that idea.

The pandemic has taught the third grader something that much older students learn in psychology classes, "We will be able to do it. It just won't be that fun. It's kind of hard because some ways to tell people how you're feeling is to have a facial expression."

Mom is impressed that her daughter has figured that out, but it speaks to what kids have been missing. "They just need the interaction, they need learning and playing, that balance," Peterson said. "We just started playing sports and I see their spirits lifted."

Peterson coaches softball for her two daughters. She said it's hard for kids to do social distancing, which will be part of going back to school in the pandemic. As a coach, she finds that hula hoops help. But those are unlikely in the classroom. Peterson feels for teachers. "It's going to be logistically challenging, and people need to give them a break. Keeping the kids apart is a challenge and it's exhausting and you've got to do that all day if you're a teacher."

Peterson's youngest, Addie, will be starting kindergarten. Addie is excited about everything - new friends, meeting her teacher, learning - but the one thing she is most looking forward to may not be all she hopes. Addie has been talking to her mom about where she would sit on the school bus. But the district said it can't accommodate every student who wants a ride, presumably due to social distancing rules. Parents are encouraged to drive their children. Bus service won't be available to students who live within 1.5 miles of their elementary school or 2.5 miles from their middle school or high school. Parents who really want their children to ride the bus need to register as soon as possible.

Middle School

One Saint Vrain family has three students in middle school and high school. Two will be going back half time, one will go full time. "Not sending everyone back is probably good to test the waters," said the kid's mom, who we will call Caroline. She wants to remain anonymous because of the strong opinions around the issue.

"We are glad that sixth and ninth graders are going back, because they are going to a new school and meeting new people." She's glad there is a plan for at least some in-person learning, but she is not sure it will be enough for her "go-getter" middle school daughter, who will be on the half-and-half schedule. "She just loves to be at school. She loves her teachers. That's her happy place," Caroline said. "She loves to be in every single club and play. So she is very, very active. I think that's going to be a challenge for her."

The school district hasn't released details about extracurricular activities. Caroline is hoping there will be offerings, perhaps even this summer, since some sports practices are now being allowed. Her two older children are both in sports and she said it has made a big difference for them to have more social interactions.

Caroline is pleased that the coaches take kids' temperatures every day before practice and are enforcing other health precautions. She would like to see that happen at school every day in the fall too, but the district plan said families will need to do that on their own. "It sets a bar. They can make sure they have a mask, ask them a question or two. I feel like the kids would take it more seriously when they're in school and recognize it's a big deal. Once you start letting people do their own thing, they get sloppy. It's human nature," she said, adding that she wants the return to school to succeed and doing health checks could help.

High School

Something is better than nothing for Caroline's oldest child, a high school junior who we'll call Sarah. "I'm kind of bummed I'm not going to be able to go full time, especially not seeing my friends for a couple of months, but I know it's very important to be safe," she said. "I'm glad my brother can go back full time as a freshman. I think it is a good balance."

Sarah is looking forward to having some in-person learning. "It's not as much that I didn't learn as well, we just didn't learn as much. It just went slower," she said. One difference in the fall will be synchronous remote learning, meaning students will attend a "live" class via videoconferencing instead of the more independent study they did in the spring.

It's not clear how schools will split students into A and B groups. Sarah wonders if she will see the same people all the time and how it will work with extracurricular activities. She likes having a variety of classmates, not just a few close friends. "Getting to talk with them, making connections, I wouldn't want to lose that. I would hope that it would stay intact," Sarah said. "Something can change. We're trying not to get too comfortable with the plan and being adaptable."

This doesn't look like the high school finale that seniors had hoped for, but it may be more than the class of 2020 had in the spring.

Ben Goff is on the cross country team and is hoping to be president of the student council. He worries that the split-learning plan will take away what he's most looking forward to in his last year of high school, the social part, while returning only the academics. "The parts that are the least enjoyable are the monotonous hours in the classroom. It's not a dig at teachers, it's just the reality of school," he said.

This summer, Goff has been planning assemblies that he would emcee, but he isn't sure that they'll happen. He's concerned that there won't be Homecoming or weekly football games and that students will lose the simple, daily interactions between one another. "They're going to try to make it different to hang out. I just don't know how they're going to try to do this. Kids have to go in the hallways to get to class. Are you going to go single file? There will be kids within six feet of each other regardless of what they do," Goff said.

The half-time plan is an overreaction in Goff's opinion, since young people are not as likely to get COVID-19 or get seriously ill. But he understands that decisions are being made out of an abundance of caution. "The only thing we have to worry about is teachers. If teachers could socially distance and stay a little away, I think that would be best," he said.

Goff would prefer that students get one option or another - either all remote or all in-person learning. "If a kid is in a vulnerable population, they can go all online. We know that's possible. If those kids want to take that option, that's great and it makes sense. But we should be able to have a full high school experience if we want it. I think that would be the best of both worlds," Goff said.

Families have been told that schools would reach out to them later this summer with more information. "I feel like they're doing their best. No one is being dealt an easy hand. We all have opinions, but someone has to make hard decisions. I wish we were being told more," Goff said.

The Courier has not been able to get answers either. As of the publication deadline, SVVSD's communications specialist would not grant the Courier's requests for interviews and gave incomplete answers to our list of written questions.

There is a school board meeting on July 8 and a COVID-19 update is on the agenda. The district's final plans are expected in a couple of weeks, but it acknowledged on its website that things could change at any point depending on how well Coloradoans keep the coronavirus in check.

"I'm still optimistic," Goff said. "I'm hoping this year will be good and that we get through this together and I think we will."