Virus pushes schools to adapt to new methods

By Dave Taylor

Spread out at individual tables in the media center at Hancock County High School, the school board heard a recap of the various ways the district has been helping students and families during the coronavirus shutdown and looked ahead to how things will change in the coming months. 

Student Success Coordinator Carrie Kimbrell gave a presentation to the board, two of the members attending via video chat, detailing the work that’s being done, highlighted by the expanded summer feeding program. 

“We’ve been working super, super hard,” she told the board. “Not that anybody didn’t work hard before, but this has just pushed us to a different form of working than ever before.”

She told how the staff found out on a Thursday that schools would be closed due to the virus, so they met through Friday night coming up with a plan to provide meals for students the next week. They had the operation up and running on Monday and by Tuesday they were able to tell families about what time to expect one of six buses running routes.

Those same buses are also delivering hygiene and cleaning products to some families, and other buses equipped with Wi-Fi are being parked in rural locations to allow free internet access. 

“That was a huge obstacle many of them are having, that not all of our families have internet or have access all the time…” she said. 

While students are at home, teachers and other personnel are using online videos and other remote ways to reach out to them.

“All of us have been pushed to work on formats and platforms we’ve never done before,” she said, mentioning video chat programs like Zoom and Google Meet.

“I think during this time it’s so super important that our kids and our parents are seeing familiar faces and familiar voices that they weren’t going to get to see if we didn’t start doing those things,” she said.

Kimbrell also pointed out that with schools closed, parents are responsible for ensuring that their kids are doing their school work and learning what they need to, but many of those same parents have the stress of a layoff or might even be taking on more work hours during the virus shutdowns.

“Our parents have definitely risen to the occasion,” she said. 

Superintendent Kyle Estes said the changes resulting from the virus closings have pushed schools to examine the ways they’ve been doing things.

“I’ve told a few people, I don’t know what school’s going to look like in the future and we’ve had conversations around how school needs to look different, but I never thought that it was a global pandemic that may change the way we educate students,” he said.