Wamego's Response: A COVID-19 Story

Speaker 1: Many schools around the world as you know have shut down some for extended periods of time as this virus spreads.

Speaker 2: Here in New York City two more public schools join them more than fifteen hundred K through 12 schools across the country that have or plan to shut down due to this virus.

Speaker 3:We tell them it's only going to be for a period of time but when you see what Kansas did for K through 12 and some talk of the word indefinite that has an impact.

Tim Winter, USD 320 Superintendent: Wamego school district has approximately sixteen hundred students our primary community is the city of Wamego. But we also have smaller communities in Louisville and Bellevue. We are growing school districts and we have four schools: Central Elementary, West Elementary, Wamego middle school and then of course we have Wamego high school. Our teachers and staff administration, it’s really quite amazing how they came together and in one week's time we went from being a traditional school to being completely online. We now have sixteen hundred students in their homes, learning as best they can. Our teachers are working very hard to meet their needs and maintain relationships and make sure that they're healthy, happy and doing well as best we can under these trying circumstances. 

Heather Petermann, Special Education teacher, Wamego High School: I was in the family room doing a workout and my phone went off and I got the text that said this school was going to be canceled for the end of the year and I just crumbled up and started crying because teaching the kids that I do... school is everything for my students. And I just saw their faces come before me and just knowing that for my kids that are low-functioning that have so many severe needs. They don't have friends reaching out to them. They don't have snapchat. And I just remember seeing the word lonely go before me. One of my students. She has cerebral palsy. She's in a wheelchair. And her speech is very limited at times. So she was one of my main concerns and then another student that is on the autism spectrum and the whole concept of not being person to person just made zero sense to her. And so I was trying to think through how in the world am I going to make this work. But I also knew that with technology I could be creative and find ways to reach my kids and connect with my students. So Hyrum, tell us about your chicken. 

Student: Well, see she gets broody so, so eventually at times...

Heather Petermann: And I can be a little bit stubborn and so I was also like OK, I'm going to get this I'm not going to let this beat me, I'm going to think outside the box and reach out to some other people and see what I can come up with. 

Lori Rice, 4th grade teacher, West Elementary: This is so much harder than being in the classroom, developing the lessons and honing down to that one or two things you want them to know when they have to know it without me there has been a struggle and being able to provide them with quality things that everyone has access to even that simple things like markers and supplies to do a STEM project. I don't want to make that divide and so trying to find those very very common household items so students can still be engaged and can still be learning. That's something that we need to keep in mind and I think Wamego’s done a wonderful job of trying to equate all that with everyone having what they need. 

Tim Winter: We have a very supportive community. A few years ago they were very supportive and passed a bond that allowed us to implement a one-to-one device program and that has given us some sizable advantages to meeting our students needs. The fact that WTC partners with us in so many ways they reached out to us, we quickly developed a partnership where we could reach out to families that did not have Internet access and we identified approximately 40 families that needed Internet and they stepped up to the plate went to those homes, provided that service on a month-to-month basis and they will provide Internet free of charge through the end of our school year. We also had some families outside of their service area. And we have provided them with hot spots through our community. We were able to have several of those donated and within that first week we had made contact with every single student and ensured that they had internet access and could communicate with us through our devices. 

Amy Flinn, Principal, West Elementary: I have colleagues across the state that do not have that luxury. So it was just this amazing just like coming together of people, you know, both both educators and community members and parents and saying you know we can do this we can get through this. So I feel like we had this good start. It was just a matter of how was it now going to transform into instruction and demonstrating that learning beyond just hosting work.

Student: Bottles and cans would be recyclable. Last night Pam helped...

Jessica Lane, Assistant Professor, Counselor Education, Kansas State University: You know one thing that I've been really impressed with is that they're more focused on how they're doing socio-emotionally. They're really wanting to connect with the kids. They spend time greeting each kid as they come online and then zoom in and drawing them into the conversation and just making a point to talk to each of them individually and collectively. I see them becoming more comfortable with the technology, and my kids' homeroom teachers, they're very open to feedback and just kind of looking at this as a team effort. I know one day we kind of did some troubleshooting with Zoom and the teacher was really responsive. And now we're kind of building a plane in the air but everyone is giving it their best shot. And I'm really appreciative of that.

Cathy Wilber, 3rd grade teacher, West Elementary: Teaching has never looked like this before. It's always been you having one-on-one experience, for your love children and love teaching them and so it breaks your heart that you don't have that one-to-one connection. So you just try to create that, but it's not, it's not the same. So to me it's been a team approach. We work together and plan time to hone in on what standards would we normally teach in the fourth quarter and what standards are the most critical. And so that is a great deal different than what we would have been doing in our classrooms.

Kale Katt, Principal, Wamego High School: We really did emphasize more than anything else that we're going to take care of our kids. Academics are going to be second to their social-emotional states. And it was it was funny because during our first week if we would have that attendance throughout the rest of the school year we'd be leading the state. You know it was awesome, we were over 95 percent and it was really neat. I think people were excited. But we're still constantly making phone calls home or shooting e-mails. We're still doing everything we can emphasizing that social-emotional above academic portion of it.

Laura Fails, USD 320 Food Services Director: What's inspired me the most about my staff and the other district staff that are helping us is how committed they are to doing the right thing for kids. We pride ourselves in providing healthy, nutritious well-balanced meals. And it's painful to be in a situation where we're not able to do that for our kids and it is really shown me that for so many of us this is not just a job that you go and punch the time clock, that there's real commitment and real care and real passion.

Before COVID-19 we did transport from this kitchen to four school buildings. So in some respect we're still delivering to four different sites, but we're not using our food truck with the lift gate, we're loading things into vans, working with a team of volunteers. They come every day. They load everything into their van, take it to their site, assemble the meals on site and load up the leftovers and bring them back to the kitchen. The reaction from parents in the community has been amazing. And it makes the long hours and everything that we're doing absolutely worth it. I'm so happy that we are able to provide these meals for these kids that benefit the family.

Amy Flinn: You know what I think has been surprising for all of our kids is just they've been more capable than I ever imagined navigating this. It's been great just to see their individuality come out through this. The biggest concern I have is just these children are going to come back and we're going to have to meet them where they are and we're going to have to give grace and understanding and say, OK let's take them from where they are diagnose what they need and then move forward

Heather Petermann: It was unbelievable to be a part of the high school staff leadership team through completely uncharted waters and then see us come up with how should this look? How do we want to do this?

Lori Rice: I feel like it's pushed me to really identify what's important when I do anything. Just finding those little bitty ways to make the complete individual connections is so much stronger now because again in the classroom there is twenty one of them they're all there at the same time they're always there and the ones that want to hide get to hide.

Cathy Wilber: Relationships are important and building your relationships with your students is more important than ever. They are children outside of our classrooms and our classrooms are now inside their homes and it's such a bigger picture of how we are preparing them mentally socially and course educationally.

Jessica Lane: One of the other things that I think Wamego is doing well and that we talk about in counseling is removing or mitigating barriers to learning as much as possible. And I've seen that with dealing with food insecurity. Tim even being there at drop off with toilet paper Tuesdays, all the different kinds of connections that they're trying to make with teachers and students. So I think they're really making an effort to take away those barriers.

Kale Katt: I keep telling my staff that if we go back to the way that we've always done things after this is over then we have failed and we have lost an opportunity to improve. A lot of what we do now works for a lot of kids. But we know that it doesn't work for every kid and we have kids right now who are absolutely thriving in this environment whether they suffer from terrible anxiety whether they have extenuating family circumstances, and they're not successful because we make them come to school at this time and go to these classes and then go home at the end of a long day. And if we can find a way to allow them to be successful and to really take ownership of their learning, then we have succeeded and what we've learned with this.