Reimagined school year includes Zoom with teachers, tech support

Poplar Bluff R-I teachers are offering office hours to reconnect with students and offer assistance with at-home projects.

Dr. Scott Dill, superintendent, said he wants to be clear that this is not school.

“This isn’t even an approximation school. My teachers, the work that they do on a daily basis, we can’t replicate that for our kids right now,” he said.

The district is trying to combat the summer backslide of lost information, which Patty Robertson, assistant superintendent of curriculum, said they expect to be worse this year. The goal is to do this without a lot of requests for parents.

Dill said this starts with teachers reconnecting with students, but from there the project will look different for each grade level.

“At the high school level, I think it looks a lot like teaching and learning,” he said. “I think that we’ll have discussions. No grades, no assignments, no goals. This is teaching and learning in its purest form, to the best of our ability to deal with these difficult circumstances.”

Meanwhile, at the lower levels, packets of worksheets are available where the district is offering meal pick-ups. Again, these aren’t for grades, but are rather a way for parents to help their student keep up with what they were learning.

In order to help with this, the teachers will offer weekly office hours where parents can get help or they can work directly with students on problems.

“This is a huge opportunity for our parents to engage with teachers about how to teach certain things that maybe because they’re at home, and we’re in school, that they’ve not been able to truly support the mathematics instruction, for example, because they’re not quite sure how they’re doing math,” Robertson said. “Well, if they jump on a Zoom call with an elementary teacher with their kid, because we know that the elementary levels that moms and dads, grandmas are going to be the ones sitting in … the virtual classes. That’s a wonderful opportunity for parents to learn from our teacher ways to support at home.”

While these hours can include video conferences, Dill explained the programs being used also offer phone call options for those who don’t have access to the video calls. Some teachers, Dill said, also face infrastructure issues that will get in the way of the project, but each grade level will have a teacher available to help.

“This is not school in the traditional form, this is an opportunity,” Dill said. “We want them to take advantage of it. But we also understand that there’s a lot going on in their lives and in the world right now, and they may not be able to focus on this. But for some, this may be the escape from the day to day. And honestly, in talking with our teachers, I think that we’ve heard that echoed many times. We’re so thankful to be back engaged.”

Along with these additional resources, ones the district put out before will still be available. One such resource is a web page with a variety of links to other activities for students. This site is off the district’s main website. It includes reading resources, podcasts, audiobooks and schedule resources. Additionally, there’s a page for each grade level that goes into more detail about what they were learning in each class and additional outside resources to address those topics.

Michele Carmode, media specialist with PBMS, helped create the site as a way to reach parents with the information without “bombarding them with multiple emails or documents.” She created the outline of the website, which was then filled in by lead teachers at each grade level.

“The resources we included are resources we currently use at each grade level - digital and printable options,” she said. “Each digital resource is linked directly to the educational website and some include directions on how to log in from home. We wanted to keep everything familiar with the students and not throw anything new at them. The parents can also find a list of essential outcomes for each grade level.”

Carmode advised parents not to stress about lesson plans or filling the day. She also recommended family do some things that aren’t traditional school activities, like going outside when the weather allows.

“I’m the mom of two boys and I’ve already figured out that this home school gig is not easy,” she said “Use the resources from our site as a guide for all things academic, but be mindful of the amount of time they spend on each one and give them breaks. Create a schedule, but make it flexible. Make new memories at home: cook as a family, play board games and card games, watch movies, document/journal each day together, and allow the kids to pick out some activities they want to do.”