Despite thriving online, West Hazleton kindergartners, other HASD students prepare for in-person return

Apr. 12—To get ready for the first day of classes Monday , Kim Houser made a video to show kindergartners around West Hazleton Elementary/Middle School.

"We start outside, walk in virtually and show them what it is going to look like to come in and where our classroom is," Houser said.

Inside the classroom, kindergartners will see squares that Houser taped off around their desks to keep them physically distant and blunt the spread of COVID-19.

The pandemic kept them from sitting in the same room until now even though school started back on Sept. 8.

During that time, the 20 kindergartners that Houser teaches and most other Hazleton Area students have taken classes remotely and talked to each other across computer screens.

A few hundred of the 11,646 students assigned to one of Hazleton Area's 13 schools resumed classes in person March 22. Seniors reported to shops for vocational courses that require them to practice skills with tools and machines, and students in programs that offer autistic and learning support went to classrooms. They also attended classes from late September to Thanksgiving.

To prepare for the other students to return, maintenance, security and cafeteria workers returned from layoffs. They cleaned halls, walls and rooms thoroughly.

Bus drivers will shuttle students to and from school.

Many teachers received vaccinations against COVID-19 and started streaming online lessons from classrooms on March 15.

In Houser's room, each student has a mat and space to relax on within the square around their desk.

Students have their own scissors, glue, crayons, pencils and books in their desks so they won't have to share supplies.

While teaching students via computer, Houser posted their photos on a wall "just so I can see the kids' faces. I needed to see that," she said.

Even though Houser could not see students in person, she knew that they grasped lessons well while studying with online resources.

"It's really given a lot of these kids a big advantages we didn't expect," she said.

When the year began, four of 20 students in the class could identify all the uppercase and lower case letters.

Now 16 have mastered the alphabet.

They also learned to sound out letters and consonant clusters, skills that Houser called building blocks for reading.

In one program called A to Z Raz Kids, children listen as a computerized voice reads to them.

Next they read the passage.

"Then they record it so I can hear them read, and parents work with them," Houser said.

Raz Kids also gives parents ideas about how to teach their children to read. As a bonus, parents who speak primarily Spanish learn English words as they work alongside their children.

One girl has been reading to her brother, a fifth-grader who notices when she recognizes letters and words that she didn't know before.

"It's great to listen to him praise her," Houser said. "It's become a family event."

Another program says "Oops," giving kindergartners a chance to try again if they don't spy all the capital letters in a grid or mark the wrong answer to a subtraction problem.

Some software works so well that Houser intends to keep using it in the classroom. She also plans to keep recording lessons for absent students to watch later.

But she said students are ready to meet each other.

"I am so excited to come to school and make friends," one student told her.

Of her 20 students, 17 plan to come to class. The other three plan to continue studying with Houser online, including one kindergartner who logs on from out of the country.

For those in the classroom, days will be longer, stretching 6 1/2 hours.

While at home, half of her class tuned in for 2 3/4 hours in the morning and worked on their own in the afternoons when the other kindergartners followed a reverse schedule.

At West Hazleton, Houser expects students will be able to go outside for recess and gym classes.

"Our art teacher is looking forward to cloud drawings and nature work," she said.

While kindergartners still might feel first-day jitters, they know what to expect know more than they did on Sept. 8.

"The children know what we look like, and we know what they look like," Houser said.

Contact the writer: kjackson@standardspeaker.com; 570-501-3587