A few Denver area kids entered school buildings for the first
time since spring Monday as two districts — Cherry Creek and
Douglas County — forged ahead with their reopening plans.
At Walnut Hills Elementary in Centennial, a parade of parents
dropped off masked fifth-graders in the early morning for the first
day of the 2020-21 academic year — and the first element of the
Cherry Creek School District’s plan for in-person learning
for the vast majority of its 55,000 students.
Cherry Creek is taking a cautious approach in its first week
back in the classroom, with each elementary grade getting its own
dedicated day in-person this week before everyone is back in school
next week.
“As a district, we didn’t take this lightly,” said Teolyn
Bourbonnie, principal of Walnut Hills, which has an enrollment of
203 students. “We’ve done the adequate amount of planning and
putting in place safety measures to bring back the kids.”
Those measures include masks for all students and staff,
staggered lunch times and recesses to keep crowding to a minimum
and directional tape in the hallways to control the flow of little
feet throughout the building. There are around 40 kids in Walnut
Hills’ fifth-grade class, which lined up aside two rows of orange
cones outside the school Monday morning before the 8 a.m. starting
bell sounded.
“It’s great to have the kids back in school — we’re all
excited,” Bourbonnie said. “Kids need to be in school.”
Principal Teolyn Bourbonnie, right, greets one of the two
5th-graders that arrived to school by bus. Teachers and staff greet
students in the 5th-grade-class at Walnut Hills Elementary School
in the Cherry Creek School District in Centennial on Aug. 17, 2020.
Still, the year begins with uncertainty as
several schools around the country that have reopened in recent
days have had to revisit their decisions as cases of COVID-19
began circulating.
Walnut Hills Elementary parent Jeff Ross said he’s not worried
about the return to school for his son, Bryce, whose third-grade
class commences in-person instruction Wednesday. Ross was dropping
his son off at the school Monday morning for a summer school
program that has been held at Walnut Hills for the past month or
so.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Ross said of in-person
learning, whichended
abruptly in March as the virus began its spread across
Colorado. “The structure of remote learning (in the spring) was
good, but my boy didn’t take to it. It was a challenge for us to
keep him on task.â€
Convincing his kid to wear a mask? No big deal, Ross
said: “He’s really into Star Wars right now so he’s into
being Darth Vader.â€
Cherry Creek and
Douglas County are the biggest districts in the metro area
starting the school year with at least some in-person instruction.
Westminster Public Schools is opening its buildings to the majority
of its student body on Thursday, and Mapleton Public Schools in
Adams County is reopening with in-person classes later this
month.
Jefferson County, the second-largest school district in
Colorado, has
put off in-person learning for at least the first two weeks of
the school year, while the biggest district in the state, Denver
Public Schools, has
postponed the opening of schools until at least
mid-October.
The resumption of school in the United States has prompted much
debate — and politicization — as the stabilization of COVID-19
case numbers in late May
gave way to a surge in infections as people began congregating
more, bringing the country’s caseload to nearly 5.4 million and
deaths to 170,000.
While the respiratory disease the coronavirus causes
overwhelmingly targets older people and those with existing health
problems, children are not entirely immune to it. Earlier this
month, the American Academy of Pediatrics
reported that nearly 180,000 new cases of COVID-19 in children
were recorded in the United States from July 9 to Aug. 6, a 90%
increase in child cases over that time period.
The academy did note, however, that “available data indicated
that COVID-19-associated hospitalization and death is uncommon in
children.â€
All the 5th-graders are directed to stand by a colored cone on the
ground while they wait in line to enter the school so they can
practice proper physical distancing. Teachers and staff greet
students in the 5th grade class at Walnut Hills Elementary School
in the Cherry Creek School District in Centennial on Aug. 17,
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Many advocates of in-person learning note that nothing can match
the value of face-to-face instruction, especially for children with
special needs or those who may not be able to afford the technology
required for learning over the internet.
Kasey Ellis, president of the Cherry Creek Education
Association, said the union worked diligently with the district
over the last few months to figure out how to best approach the
reopening. Even if Cherry Creek is forced to close again, depending
on how coronavirus behaves in Arapahoe County, Ellis said, there is
value to having at least a bit of face time and interaction between
teachers and students.
“It’s important to make a personal connection with
students,†she said.
