Students graced Waite High School’s halls for the first time this school year on Thursday when staff welcomed in the freshman class, which until now has received all of its instruction online.
“We’re almost three-quarters done with the school year and this is their first time in the building,” said Todd Deem, Waite’s principal. “...It feels absolutely great having them here. We missed them as much as they’ve missed us through this interesting time. It’s almost been a calendar year since we’ve been in the building.”
Students felt the same way.
“It’s exciting to be in school, but nerve-wracking because I’ve personally never seen the building until today. It was scary at first, but it’s calm now,” said Tamyah Griffin, 14, a Waite freshman.
The Waite ninth graders were among students throughout the district who returned to classrooms Thursday for the fourth through ninth grades as part of the Toledo Public Schools’ phased return to live instruction. The first half of those grades returned Thursday, while the rest will return Friday.
The weeklong process began Monday with the return of the first group of pre-kindergarten through third-grade students and those in self-contained special education programs and will finish next Monday with the return of the upper high school grades.
Students will continue to receive online instruction on alternating days, with the classes divided into cohorts so that social distancing can be maintained in classrooms.
Mr. Deem said the biggest adjustment Thursday at Waite was ensuring students follow safety protocols.
“Some of the adjustments are ensuring students follow protocols from the district, CDC, and health department,” he said. “It's a different setup for the students. The hardest thing is trying to make sure they realize why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
The Griffin youth said she had done well with remote instruction “because I’m good with school” and stayed on top of her studies.
“It’s interesting seeing my teachers’ faces for the first time,” she said. “I was one of the students that didn’t turn on my camera when we were online.”
Kyle Briggs, a Waite social studies teacher, said seeing students’ faces was refreshing because many of them had kept their cameras off during online classes on Google Meets.
“Our students have been little colored circles with a letter in them,” Mr. Briggs said. “It was different having students in my first hour, because I’ve never seen some of their faces before because some weren’t comfortable turning on their cameras.”
The return to in-person instruction should also reinvigorate some students whose motivation — and attendance — has weakened during remote teaching, Mr. Briggs said.
“So many students seemed to lose motivation when we were online, I had a couple of kids show up first-hour who hadn't logged in online in months,” he said. “So we were able to power through for kids online, but our biggest issue was the lack of attendance and dedication with remote learning and some of our kids not having the full support at home. We’re hoping that with having the students in front of us we can help them along.”
Breaking the student body into two cohorts should help the freshmen adjust to the newness of going to classes in an unfamiliar building, the teacher said.
“Normally we’d have just one freshmen day with all of them and we’d have 300 freshmen in the building,” Mr. Briggs said. “This is like the most tamed day of school we’ve ever had. It looks different and it feels different but it’s good to have the kids back.”
First Published February 25, 2021, 10:14 p.m.
