Preparing Our Elementary Kids Return to School

It has been a year since many children in California and nationally have returned to a traditionally classroom since the COVID 19 pandemic. Many smaller elementary schools and school districts have successfully reopened their schools to students while enforcing clearly defined health and safety procedures.

Safe COVID Practices

Summarized below are best practices these schools use to ensure that their students are safe at school:

The school continues to share with families what the staff has done to ensure safe learning for students. Classroom teachers and the school’s administrative staff provide regular updates.
Students sit in socially distanced desks in classrooms.
They wear masks at school.
Students bring their own food and socially distance from others when eating lunch and snacks.
They bring their own hand sanitizer or soap for regular handwashing.
Many schools test students every two weeks to ensure they do not have COVID 19.
Most students continue attending school online two to three times a week as part of a hybrid learning model to limit the number of students at a school site each day.

How Are Kids Feel About Their Schools

As students return to school, they are:

Excited to visit with their teacher and classmates in person
Excel at school because they are so happy to be back in the classroom with other students and their teacher
Can receive added support more readily due to the many resources available to students at the school
Express more confidence about their computer literacy skills after logging into the online classroom daily, completing homework online, and learning to make a slide and take pictures of their work that they have emailed to their teacher
Appreciate the ability to work independently on the computer and in small classroom projects because of the training they received as distance learners
Are proud of the resiliency skills they have gained while sheltering at home and through distance learning
Are able to demonstrate various strategies they have learned online on how to reduce stress and anxiety while completing new computer applications.

Home Sheltering Successes

May your children celebrate the many computer literacy skills and self-resiliency skills they have acquired while sheltering in place for nearly a full school year.

Joyce