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"That's What Teachers are For": Educators Prepare to Return to the Classroom During a Pandemic

Jackie Hendry

Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to the Meade School District as the Meade County School District. The story has been corrected.

The average school day will be different this year because of the coronavirus, but just how different depends on the district.

Some schools are installing plastic barriers and one-way signs in hallways. Some teachers say they’ll dedicate time to review material from last year that students may have missed.

Still others worry if the challenge of distance learning has been ignored with a rush to get students back in the classroom.

Sioux Falls Superintendent Jane Stavem has done a lot of explaining about how the school year will go. She talked recently to the Sioux Falls Downtown Rotary Club.

“Now, you might have plexiglass barriers in the middle of a circle table to separate kids,” she says as she describes some of the changes. “There’s dots on the floors so little ones know where to sit to be spaced away from each other. Maybe when they’re in the library. And then there’s those traffic patterns.”

Stavem says the halls in a school might not be wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic.

“All of our building leaders are working with their staff to say, how do we take this space that’s functioned in a way that’s very familiar and do something that’s unfamiliar.”

In some schools, that means students walk one direction in a hallway. And the district is experimenting with flexible schedules to limit the number of students in a building. Stavem says that could help in the event they need to respond to a COVID outbreak. 

Across the state, the Meade School District is delaying its start date until September 8th.

“Our start date has been pushed back two weeks due to the rally, to kinda see how that all plays out.”

Second grade teacher Kadee Roth says she and her colleagues at Sturgis Elementary School want to see the impact the motorcycle rally has on local COVID numbers.

That number will affect what the first few days of school look like.

The Meade School District has a three phase back-to-school plan based on the number of COVID cases. But Roth says parents and teachers will have to wait a few more weeks to know how they’ll start the year.

“We had a school board meeting [on the 17th] deciding which phase we need to start in and they weren’t able to come to an agreement on that quite yet.  So, they’re gonna have a separate, another meeting I believe on August 31st to decide which phase we’re gonna start in.”

That’s when the board will decide whether masks are optional or required. It’s just a week before classes begin, but Kadee Roth plans to make some changes in her classroom: she’ll have fewer students at a table, and she’ll have plexiglass barriers between them.

Mask policies have become a litmus test for local school officials. They will decide whether masks become a requirement for classroom instruction.

Loren Paul is President of the South Dakota Education Association, which represents thousands of teachers around the state.

“The biggest concern is probably coming back to school without masks being mandatory,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest hot button right now.”

Paul says every district in the state is approaching things differently. Some will provide plexiglass barriers for classrooms to separate students. Others are making teachers construct barriers themselves. Paul says most districts have been responsive to teachers’ concerns.

“You know, to a point. Except for, like I say, I keep hitting on the masks. That’s what we’re hearing the most from our teachers and I understand it because once again, the CDC, state medical association, and American Academy of Pediatrics all recommend wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID.”

Some people--including Governor Kristi Noem--think it’s impractical to expect young kids to wear masks throughout the school day. The governor talked during a recent back-to-school press conference.

“I think having kiddos sitting at their desk trying to learn while they’re fidgeting with a mask and trying to breathe and not have it bother their nose or their ears,” she said. “All of that is a reality our teachers and our administrators are going to have to deal with.”

The governor went on to say masks can be an option but that school officials should not make them mandatory.  

In the Meade School District--where mask policy will vary based on COVID case numbers--Sturgis Elementary School teacher Kadee Roth has a different perspective.

“If I model it, they respect me and they will learn it. Some kids come to school not knowing how to hold a pencil. That’s what teachers are for,” says Roth. “We show them these things and we model these things.” 

In the state’s largest school district, Sioux Falls will make masks expected for staff and students. Superintendent Jane Stavem is careful to avoid words like “mandate” and “requirement.”

“It’s proper to call it an expectation,” she explains, “and we have steps in place just like we have with other expected behaviors for helping you comply with that.”

School staff will remind students to wear a mask. They’ll offer a replacement for a lost mask and may even call parents. Stavem says she doesn’t want staff to be preoccupied with enforcing mask-wearing or for a student without a mask to be removed from class.

“I’m not ok with denying a child a free and appropriate public education. And I want to do everything I can to help them comply with an expectation. But we also have been in a community that values personal choice. So, we’re trying to walk that very very delicate line down all of that.”

Stavem says she needs the entire Sioux Falls community to help keep kids in school by limiting COVID transmission. It’s a connection that hasn’t been made everywhere.

Back in the Meade School District, Carol Waider teaches second grade at Piedmont Valley Elementary School. She says the rate of infection in a community should guide back-to-school decisions.

“In countries that have successfully returned to school and stayed in school, they made sure the community spread was almost non-existant. And I think those are the measures we really need in place more so than just self-screen your child before they go to school.”

The World Health Organization says when the percent of positive tests is above five percent, there should be restrictions to prevent transmission. Meade County’s current rate over the last two weeks is 8.7%. In Sioux Falls, it’s 12%.

Carol Waider worries it won’t matter what her district puts in place if the virus is still spreading throughout the community.

“My greatest concern going back in the classroom is that I don’t want to be in class for two weeks, have a positive case and quarantine, and try to social distance after that. I want to go back to school when I know we’ll be back in school as long as possible,” says Waider.

But that’s tough to predict. No school district has a predetermined number of cases that will trigger a school closing.

And Waider says there’s another challenge educators have not confronted.

“We have not adequately prepared to improve upon distance learning,” she says. “I think that we really needed to make a commitment to making sure every student in South Dakota is one-to-one with some form of technology or device. And I think a lot more time this summer should have been spent making sure every student has adequate access to WiFi. Because I think it’s inevitable that we will return to distance learning, and my fear is we’re not prepared for that.”

Some teachers recognize their students might need some remedial lessons. Kadee Roth in Sturgis says she has fifteen minutes set aside each day to help her second graders catch up on telling time and working with money. Those are skills they were supposed to learn last year in first grade.

But with everything that will make this school year different, Roth says one thing hasn’t changed.

“My goal in teaching is the same,” she says. “My goal is that all the kids are going to leave my classroom everyday knowing that I love them, knowing that I care for them. And I can confidently say that’s the same for all teachers at Sturgis Elementary. That will never change.”

Roth says there is one thing she hasn’t decided yet: whether or not it’s safe to hug her students once they’re all together back at school.