D21 Taking Classes Online

“I interact with 130 kids every day. I teach science. It’s a hands-on subject… It’s very challenging,” said The Dalles Middle School teacher Kelly DeLeon on Thursday.

Kelly is one of hundreds of staff at North Wasco County School District who are working through curriculum, making videos, homework and even at-home science labs as they deliver education online to the district’s some 3,000 students.

All classes are expected to be online Monday April 13 as schools have been shuttered for the rest of this school year.

For DeLeon, she is already live and teaching astronomy and the lunar cycle. Typically, she would use models of the sun, earth and moon at different stations in her classroom to explain it.

Not so now. Rather, she is making a computer video, moving around the lunar model to demonstrate the different phases of the moon based on perspective. She then blasts the video out to her students to view.

“At the same time, I’m helping my third grader,” she said. “I totally feel for parents who are trying to do this at the same time they are working from home.”

CONNECTIVITY=EQUITY

The Dalles Middle school checked out 188 computers to students on Wednesday. Computers are also being checked out to elementary and high school students when they are not available in a student’s home.

Some also lack internet. D21 Superintendent Candy Armstrong said private companies such as Spectrum and AT&T are offering free service to help students make the online transition.

OREGON TRAIL TRANSLATE

Fourth-grade Dry Hollow Elementary students have been working on their Oregon History. And spring term culminates with a section on the Oregon Trail, where students wear period clothing, build miniature wagons and supply them for the transcontinental journey. Now it’s all online.

“This is where my passion is,” said fourth-grade teacher Autumn Loyd. “It’s our culminating event.”

Students typically pull their model wagons through the Dry Hollow school yard set up with major landmarks of the Oregon Trail. They draw faith cards such as “snake bite” or “cholera.” They don’t all survive, but they learn the trials of those making the trek.

Loyd said her students will continue to choose an Oregon Trail character, make provisions and respond with written journals – all online. She is providing bags of provisions to choose from for the little wagons – including mini quilts - to work on at home.

Loyd is working on the fourth-grade team with fellow teachers Katie Ortega, Sarah Hammel and Melissa Heying.

“It’s divide and conquer,” Loyd said. While she and Heying are taking social studies, Ortega and Hammel are instructing math, for example. And they are providing each other peer reviews for their videos and online instructions.

TEACHER TECH – PULLING TOGETHER

Teachers are also just trying to get their students online.

“Yesterday, I responded to 50 emails and questions on what to do,” said DeLeon of getting students into the online programs. “We’re just getting the process going. Hopefully it smooths out in a little bit.”

Jill Pearson, who teaches AP History at The Dalles High School has been using Google Classroom for several years. The millennial said she has been helping co-workers such as Mary Jo Commerford navigate the technology and reimagine their classes. “It’s cool paying it back to my coworkers who helped me my first year of teaching,” she said.

STILL BUILDING THE AIRPLANE AFTER ITS TAKEN OFF

“We’re still building the airplane as we are flying it,” said D21 Superintendent Candy Armstrong – speaking of guiding online curriculum goals for elementary and middle school students.

The priority at the high school is to graduate Seniors and keep freshman through juniors on track in acquiring credits.

Of some 800 students at the high school, more than 600 have connected to the school online already. However, Armstrong said there were still more than 180 who needed to make the technological leap.

“We hope to have final guidance for seniors tomorrow,” Armstrong said.

BOOKS BY THE BASKET

Pearson and Commerford spent Tuesday going to student homes to give them Advance Placement review books. Advanced Placement offers students the chance to take a college-level class for college credit, if they pass a final exam. “The exam is still a go, although the format will be different (much shorter, all essay),” Pearson said on Thursday, April 9.

“Guided by a list of addresses and a phone, with laundry baskets in the back of the car piled high, we (Pearson and Commerford) took a grand tour of The Dalles. We learned time and again which streets do NOT connect (spoiler alert: most of them don't), and more importantly, got a rare window into the lives of our students. To keep social distance guidelines, we essentially "ding-dong-dashed" our deliveries, but often talked from the other side of the street with our students and their families. East side, west side, downtown, "way out"; pets, siblings, gardens, gravel roads, fences, mansions, trailers...and everything in between. We were reminded just how democratic a force education can be, and humbled that we get to be part of the process of equipping our students for the road ahead. Ideally, unlike the streets in TD, their road ahead will be one that connects!”