Hawaii public schools are hoping for a return to normal

As Meagan Kautz, a teacher at Hookele Elementary School, busily prepared her classroom for the start of the new school year on a wet Kapolei morning recently, she wasn’t thinking much at the moment about pandemic learning loss, mask rules, crowd violence, or anything else that had serious issues dominated the headlines about schools for the past year.

Kautz was rather excited instead, as she described her plans for the first day of school for her third graders, including huddled together in a “family circle” to get to know each other and set group rules, and hanging out in their cozy, carpeted reading nook — things the pandemic has brought about prevented a year ago. “Once the students have that joy in their hearts and that sense of belonging, they’re excited every day after that,” Kautz said. On day one, “you have this one chance to change students’ attitudes so quickly.”

This optimism of many educators is now in stark contrast to the mood at the beginning of the last school year.

In August 2021, Hawaii‘s public schools started with trepidation as the delta variant of COVID-19 surged. The students arrived emotionally and academically hurt after a previous pandemic school year that featured mostly distance learning. She and teachers encountered a changed landscape, with desks at least three feet apart, social distancing rules limiting interactive learning, universal masking, and quarantine and isolation policies that later led to widespread absenteeism and missed classes.

But this time the cuffs are off as Hawaii’s 257 public schools officially open to their 160,000 students today, though some schools have staggered starts. More than three dozen public charter schools and over 100 private schools will also open in the next few days and weeks.

Despite the high levels of COVID-19 in communities on most islands, many – but not all – teachers, students and parents say they look forward to starting a new year with more freedom and learning opportunities now that students have desks and cafeteria tables are back, groupings, quarantine and isolation rules are more relaxed, and masks are “strongly recommended” but optional both indoors and outdoors (see accompanying story).

It means more interactive classes and collaborative study projects, more field trips, more family members allowed to be in the audience at musical and theatrical performances. It means Keiki can talk to each other over lunch, hug more and, for those who want to go without masks, show their feelings.

“Last year was a roller coaster ride. This year we are so much more hopeful – excited to see a return to even more normality,” said Sean Tajima, superintendent for the Campbell-Kapolei Schools complex area. “Everyone has a different level of comfort when wearing a mask, and we will respect what everyone chooses…but masks will be optional, so I think it’s going to be exciting to see people’s faces on campus again and just our gatherings.” stop and just go back to school as we know it.”

Hookele has brought back carpeted corners for group interaction in many classrooms, and shared indoor areas, called learning hubs, can once again be used by multiple classes at once, principal Bryan Rankie said. Hookele’s cafeteria table arrangements, where students once sat in one-way rows, are now grouped again, though each is still limited to six children with assigned seating. Some other schools that scheduled student lunches in multiple small waves to keep kids at a distance are reverting to larger lunch groups, Tajima said.

Kautz was finally able to dig out some of her students’ favorite furniture for the reading corner again: her yellow-green rocking chair with a friendly frog cushion, matching lime-colored beanbags, and thick cushions on the floor, all of which invite you to flop down together. Also, their classroom desks are no longer arranged in spaced-apart rows, all facing the teacher, but in hubs that allow students to learn from each other and connect again.

Nevertheless, the presence of the pandemic can be felt here: a filter hums in the corner to clean the conditioned air. “I leave the windows open as much as possible to let in fresh air,” Kautz said. Hand hygiene stations will continue to be located at the entrances to Hookele. More than half of the school staff were still wearing masks indoors during this recent visit, including Kautz, the principal and the complex area superintendent.

air quality is a problem

In fact, not everyone thinks the more relaxed ways in schools are safe, especially since COVID-19 community levels are still high by CDC standards in all major counties in the state except Kauai. The Hawaii State Teachers Association and some leading public health experts are among those who have repeatedly urged the DOE to test and improve air quality in all 12,000 Hawaii public school classrooms and be more transparent about the results and progress.

“With the current very high levels of disease here in Hawaii, it should go without saying that unless disease levels are low or other mitigation measures (like improved ventilation) are in place, we should maintain the mask mandate for indoor schools. place,” said Burke Burnett, founder of grassroots group Hawai’i for a Safe Return to Schools, which has 8,500 members on Facebook. In response to a request for comment from Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Burnett accused the state of bowing to a vocal minority who oppose masking. “This is bad health policy,” said Burnett, who has a teenage daughter in a Honolulu public school.

Corresponding concerns spilled over on Friday at a meeting of the state education authority. While the meeting was primarily intended to focus on the issue of improving communication between families and schools, and some of the 80 participants said they were glad that masks had become optional in schools, others took the moment to speak personally with the state schools superintendent , Keith, to speak to Hayashi about her concerns about the spread of COVID-19.

“When will we know if all 12,000 classrooms are adequately ventilated? When will we know if they have adequate filtration?” Mara Hanson, a Makakilo parent, asked Hayashi during a small group discussion. She said the state’s announcement that the end of the mask mandate for DOE schools would end just about two weeks before school started didn’t give parents enough time to make plans or consider alternatives. “It’s very unfair,” she said.

Hayashi told the small group he spoke to that the DOE has been busy making significant improvements to air quality and monitoring, including distributing thousands of air purifiers and box fans and conducting professional air quality assessments. “Our classes are safe. We’re ready to go,” he said.

violence prevention

Other concerns also weighing on schools as a new school year begins is the historic level of mass violence and school shootings across the United States. The Hawaii DOE and many independent schools are strengthening violence prevention and preparedness.

Kautz says she feels safe on the Hookele campus. But even the design of the relatively new school, which was built in 2015 and includes two tiers of fences around a quadrangle of two-story buildings and a massive black metal gate at the entrance, evokes a growing national concern about school safety.

Then there is the constant challenge of helping students who are still suffering from academic and social-emotional problems caused by the expanded virtual learning of 2020-21 and the ongoing stress of the pandemic. Tajima says lag in social-emotional development is as big a problem as academic deficits — maybe even bigger.

To help kids catch up, Hawaii has been awarded nearly $950 million in federal pandemic assistance for new education programs and initiatives. But even before the pandemic, Kautz said, teachers and schools already had systems in place to track each child’s problem areas and encourage progress. Mastering multiple challenges while maintaining a focus on student learning is a natural part of a teacher’s job, she adds matter-of-factly. “We’ve always done that.”