One year later: Educators reflect on COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on schools in DeKalb County

‘The most challenging year’: As schools look to return to classrooms full time, districts talk strategy, what the pandemic has changed in education

Shawn LaPlante, an eighth grade math teacher at Huntley Middle School in DeKalb, said he worries about what students did not learn during this past year.

“There is a gap in learning, with less background knowledge in almost every single grade,” he said. “Now we’re trying to help make up that ground. We have to build up some of those background skills in order for them to be successful in the future. It will not be a one year process. This will be something we’ll be working on for several years.”

It’s been one year since students and teachers across the state were ordered to leave the classroom for a virtual learning environment amid the COVID-19 pandemic’s arrival last March. As educators continue to evolve what school looks like as they go, they’re reflecting on what’s been learned, and lost, this past year and how that will inform decisions in the days ahead.

One of Griff Powell’s favorite memories of teaching is visiting a first grade classroom to read a book to students.

“They had huge smiles on their faces and would react to the story as I read the book to them,” Powell said. “It simply made my day. For most of this school year, we didn’t have any students in our classrooms, and we didn’t have any smiles or laughter. It was a terrible experience to walk into an empty school with no students in the classrooms or hallways. There were only teachers looking at their computer screens for Zoom or Google Meets.”

Powell has been an educator for 53 years and is one of DeKalb School District’s interim superintendents, along with Ray Lechner. DeKalb’s new superintendent, Minerva Garcia-Sanchez, will take over in the permanent position July 1.

“One of the greatest experiences as an educator is that ‘a-ha moment’ when your students learn something new,” Powell said. “It just isn’t the same over Zoom or Google Meets. Teachers and their students were not able to have daily interactions or the realizations of learning during the pandemic, and I think being robbed of those experiences is devastating.”

COVID-19 one year later series logo

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

On March 13, 2020, Gov. JB Pritzker issued an executive order to close schools from March 17 through March 30 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of March, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) decided that each of the state’s 859 school districts would made their own decision about instruction.

According to the ISBE website, “districts may decide to have in-person instruction, remote learning, or a hybrid of the two strategies.”

“All DeKalb County school districts were in various stages of preparedness, but nobody saw this coming,” said Amanda Christensen, the regional superintendent of schools for the DeKalb County Regional Office of Education. “None of us were truly prepared. There is no college prep class on how to be an educator during a pandemic. We all had to do some on-the-spot learning. We all had to adapt.”

Christensen normally would meet monthly with the DeKalb County school districts’ superintendents. Since the start of the pandemic, she has met with them every week virtually.

“Because there is so much information, including new rules, regulations and guidelines from the state board and the IDPH, we have been meeting weekly,” she said. “There’s a lot of information overload, and information is being changed and updated very rapidly.”

Sycamore Superintendent Steve Wilder described the governor’s mandate last March as “unprecedented.”

“We never thought something like the pandemic would happen,” Wilder said. “A year ago, closing schools in response to a pandemic was something so foreign to us. We thought we’d close for a few weeks, but in the back of our minds, we wondered ‘What if the closure extended’. It became an immediate shift to asking ourselves, ‘What do we need to do to support children, their health and safety and their education?’ Then we had to plan and think outside the box.”

Powell said that the pandemic, “without a doubt has had a major impact on schools and learning.”

“It has been a very challenging year for anybody in education this year, and teachers have done a phenomenal job,” he said.

Changes due to the pandemic

LaPlante said that one of the most difficult challenges he had faced this past year has been engagement with his students. LaPlante is also co-president of the DeKalb Classroom Teachers’ Association.

“The conclusion of the 2019-2020 school year, we had very little engagement with students,” he said. “It was hard to get them to engage with us, they just needed more structure. By engagement, I mean if I ask them a question, are they going to respond to that? If I open an assignment, are they going to complete or attempt to complete that? Are they going to use outside help, like an app, to help them finish their work or solve problems? It’s just really hard to get them to watch a teacher teach, pay attention, take notes and do classwork when they’re at home.”

Ray Lechner, co-interim superintendent for DeKalb School District, said that he considers technology to be the biggest change in education since the start of the pandemic last year.

“Education and learning look different this year because of the pandemic, but they have been made possible due to the use of technology,” Lechner said.

“Because DeKalb is a one-to-one school district, with every student having access to technology, we had a great advantage at the start of the pandemic,” Powell said. “We relied heavily on technology when learning was fully remote.”

One of the first responses to schools closing in person was the phenomenon of e-learning, a full slate classwork done entirely virtual. E-learning wasn’t a completely foreign concept to DeKalb County schools however, since potential snow days and emergency days became e-learning days a few years ago.

“It was not a completely unknown concept, but e-learning and remote learning to such an extent was new,” Christensen said. “Some districts had to catch up to make remote learning possible. Some students adapted to remote learning very well, while others have struggled. It truly has been case-by-case.”

Powell said that “although important, technology hasn’t helped with isolation or the social emotional needs of students in the same manner as in-person learning.”

“The social emotional needs of our students are a major concern because we know without in-person learning, we cannot address those needs in the same manner,” he said. “We have been working very hard to counter the negative effects of the lack of in-person activities for students, including fine arts, music and athletics.”

Christensen said she’s noticed human interaction has changed since the start of the pandemic.

“I think everyone went through some form of isolation and there’s been a fear of getting close to someone,” she said. “We try to stay connected through Zoom and Google Meetings, but it’s different. It’s just not the same.”

Christensen said that one of the most difficult guidelines to follow during the pandemic has been social distancing.

“Our students, staff and faculty quickly adjusted to mask-wearing, hand-washing and sanitizing, but social distancing has been difficult when there is limited space in our classrooms, lunchrooms and hallways,” Christensen said.

Putting the pandemic in the past

Last Tuesday, IDPH and ISBE issued new guidance for in-person learning. One of the biggest changes is that the ISBE now defines social distancing as “3 to 6 feet for students and fully vaccinated staff.” Unvaccinated staff should maintain 6 feet of social distance as much as possible.

All DeKalb County schools offer in-person and remote learning options, with many schools planning to return to full in-person learning by this fall or earlier. Such transitions haven’t been without pushback, as parents and students throughout local public school districts continue to show up at school board meetings. Most recently, more than 400 Sycamore parents have signed a petition urging the district to return to a full-time, in-person learning model, citing health and wellness and academic shortcomings their children face as a result of the virtual environment.

Wilder said that in the role of superintendent, he “plans for the future, both short-term and long-term, while always hoping for the best but expecting the worst.”

“So much uncertainty over the last year made everything more difficult,” he said. “Returning to normalcy has become a gradual process, but we’re headed in the right direction. The vaccine has been a game changer for schools and the community. The more people get vaccinated, the more immunity and safety our community has. Receiving the vaccine, as well as practicing social distancing and other safety protocols, will continue to drive numbers down, bringing an end to the pandemic that much sooner.”

LaPlante said that he thinks “almost every teacher and every student would love to see schools get back to a normal routine with safety precautions in place.”

“Even though there were challenges administration, staff, students and families have faced, I think we have all done our best to continue education and make our community safe at the same time,” he said. “We have all made adjustments to make sure learning got done in what has been the most challenging year in my 20 years of teaching.”

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