Frankie Urquhart, left, teaches science at Ketchikan’s Schoenbar Middle School. Henry Clark is a Ketchikan High School senior and president of the student body. (Images courtesy of Urquhart and Clark)

It’s been an odd school year across the country. Students and teachers in many places have spent the majority of the year learning from home.

But not in Ketchikan. After intense public pressure over the summer, the school board decided to start the school year much like any other — albeit with masks, health screenings, temperature checks, extra classroom space and a number of other pandemic precautions.

Students and teachers experienced the school year quite differently.

Last spring, Students in Ketchikan were about to leave for what was initially supposed to be a week-long spring break. Eventually, Alaska’s governor would close school buildings through the end of the school year.

Frankie Urquhart teaches science at Ketchikan’s Schoenbar Middle School. She had to rethink her entire lesson plan.

“How do I go from presenting material, hands-on labs — which is what we do a lot in my class — to, we are on Zoom?” she said. “It felt a lot like being a game show host, to be perfectly honest.”

To add flexibility, teachers were told not to take roll or teach new material.

“It was really, really hard and, you know, it was really frustrating for parents, it was frustrating for teachers and for students. And after a while the kids stopped tuning in, because they’re like, ‘There’s Ms. Urquhart tap dancing again. And we’ve seen her — she can’t dance,'” she said.

So how was it to be on the other side of the laptop screen? Henry Clark was a junior preparing for an AP test shortly after spring break.

“And that was really scary,” Clark said.

He was looking at colleges. So grades were important.

“I was really nervous about this year, this upcoming year, just because of all the education I was going to be missing,” he said.

Teachers were nervous, too. Urquhart was watching school board meetings as a parade of parents came forward to call on the school district to return students to classrooms full-time.

“It was frustrating, it was really frustrating. It was heartbreaking. It was mind numbing, and maddening — all of those things at once,” she said. “Because in the spring, people were praising teachers: ‘Oh, you guys are heroes, we’ve now tried teaching our own kids, and — aaahhh, take them back,’ you know, that kind of thing.”

But she said attitudes shifted over the summer as parents faced another year of having their kids at home staring at screens.

“There was this tide that seemed to turn that was like, ‘Get in there and do your job. You signed up for this kind of thing.’ And, um, yeah, I did, I did sign up to teach children — but not during a pandemic,” Urquhart said.

Urquhart said she lives with someone at high risk for a serious case of COVID-19. She felt betrayed when the school board ordered teachers back in classrooms full-time with students.

“I felt like I got kicked in the stomach,” she said. “And I know a lot of other educators felt very similarly. And so yeah, it felt like a roller coaster ride that I never wanted to get on. I am not a thrill seeker like that — I wanted to vomit, to be honest.”

The district later added safety measures, like temperature checks and mandatory masks for everybody in the buildings.

But still, she said, she was anxious about returning to the classroom in September. And that anxiety only multiplied after students returned. She said she wasn’t sure she’d be able to do her job effectively.

“If you want us to go back, I need to feel safe, as do my students. Because we all talk about trauma in school, and the number one rule is, if you don’t feel safe, you can’t learn,” she said. “Well, that goes both ways. If I don’t feel safe, I can’t teach.”

Urquhart said that while some teachers were excited to return to face-to-face education, that wasn’t the case for everyone.

“I know a lot of my colleagues have been anxious. I know a lot of them have been depressed, for a lot of different reasons,” she said. “I’m finally coming out of it now. But this has been — I mean, there have been times where I just could not go to school. I just didn’t have it in me to face that day. And I have never had this kind of issue my entire life until this year.”

Clark, now in his senior year, said the pandemic has also weighed on his psyche.

“I have some family members that I was a little worried about, not going to lie. But for the most part, my main concern was not health,” Clark said. “Especially by the time we got to school, my main concern was my education and my mental health.”

He said friendships have suffered, especially his relationships with people in lower grades. Lunches were split up to reduce crowding in the cafeteria.

Clark, left, plays saxophone through a mask and a mesh bag during a band concert. (Courtesy of Clark)

“If I have classes with them, I get to see them but during lunch I don’t get to, so then — I want to hang out with them, but I can’t,” he said. “You start to lose friendships. It starts to push and pull at you like that,” he said.

And so Clark said even with the high school running at full capacity for most of the year, an overwhelming sense of exhaustion pervaded the campus, which locals call Kayhi.

“Out of all my four years at Kayhi, I never felt like such an aggressive and hostile community at times,” he said. “Not to make it sound horrible — because even now, I wouldn’t say it’s nearly that bad. But out of my four years, a lot more people are on edge.”

Urquhart said she turned a corner this spring. She said she and other teachers are feeling better.

“I’m feeling more like myself,” she said. “And I will tell you what: Getting that first vaccine — ”

Urquhart paused, lifted her hands, and imitated a chorus of angels singing.

“My anxiety went from, like, on a scale of 10, I was at like a freakin’ 12, and getting that vaccine, I went down to, like, a five. And it was the most amazing thing,” she said.

Now that she’s fully vaccinated she said feels safer in the classroom — and it’s reminded her how much she loves teaching.

The post For Ketchikan teachers and students, it’s been a tough school year on the mental health front appeared first on KRBD.

Schoenbar Middle School. (KRBD file photo)

Ketchikan’s secondary students are set to return to full-capacity classrooms Monday. That’s after local emergency officials lowered the area’s COVID-19 risk level to “moderate”, citing a decline in the local positivity rate.

Middle and high school students in most Ketchikan schools had been attending only two days a week in person for most of February. That cut schools to about half their normal capacity, allowing students and staff more space to spread out and avoid spreading COVID-19.

The risk level was lowered Wednesday afternoon, but Acting Superintendent Katie Parrott told Ketchikan’s school board Thursday that students wouldn’t return to full-time classroom instruction until Monday.

The reduction in the risk level also means Ketchikan’s library was able to reopen Friday. City of Ketchikan and Ketchikan Public Utilities offices are also open with some restrictions. Ketchikan’s Gateway Recreation Center has reopened its gym and sauna, and has raised the capacity limits in its weight and cardio rooms. League sports, lessons and classes have also resumed. The borough’s animal shelter is now open to the public again as well.

The post With Ketchikan pandemic risk down to ‘moderate,’ secondary students to return to classrooms full-time Monday appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan High School. (KRBD file photo)

Ketchikan’s school board is set to consider whether to extend its partial closure of secondary schools on Wednesday.

Most Ketchikan middle and high school students have been learning in a combination of in-class and virtual settings since early this month. Ketchikan’s emergency operations center raised the local pandemic risk level to “high” on Feb. 4, and the board has voted weekly to keep the schools partially closed.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the local risk level remains high. That means local pandemic response officials continue to recommend that the district’s middle and high schools remain at half-capacity.

At the board’s last meeting, two school board members, including board president Kim Hodne, voted to bring students back full-time. That was despite the recommendations of pandemic response officials and the acting superintendent to continue scaled back in-person learning.

While school capacity is not listed as a voting item on the meeting’s agenda, Hodne told KRBD that board members would offer their opinions on whether to bring the schools back to full capacity after the school board received an update from emergency officials. Hodne clarified late Monday that the board would not hold a formal vote on the matter.

As of now, secondary students are slated to return to full-capacity classrooms on Monday.

In other business, the board is scheduled to hear ways to improve graduation rates. A presentation from a group that includes principals and other district officials recommends targeted interventions to prevent students from falling behind during the pandemic.

Other recommendations include expanding the resources available for homeschool students as enrollment grows. The district’s Fast Track homeschool saw its four-year graduation rate drop by more than half last school year.

Ketchikan’s school board meets virtually at 6 p.m. Wednesday. Members of the public have a chance to weigh in at the beginning of the meeting, but they must sign up in advance by emailing Kerry.Watson@k21schools.org or calling the school board clerk at 247-2142 by a 1 p.m. Wednesday deadline. The meeting is broadcast on local cable channels and live-streamed at the borough’s website.

Correction: An earlier version of this story cited comments from school board President Kim Hodne saying the board would vote on whether to extend the partial closure. After this story was published, Hodne clarified that the board would informally express their opinion, but would not vote.  

The post Ketchikan school board to consider dialing back pandemic restrictions Wednesday appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan’s school board met virtually Thursday to consider bringing students back to full-capacity classrooms.  (Screenshot: Eric Stone/KRBD)

Most of Ketchikan’s secondary school classrooms will remain half-full for another week as the area’s pandemic risk level remains elevated. But some school board members pushed to fully reopen schools despite emergency officials’ advice.

Back in July, a 5-2 majority of Ketchikan’s school board voted to bring students back at 100% capacity five days a week. The vote followed months of contentious debate and hours of public testimony from parents, teachers, community members and pandemic response officials.

Here’s board member Paul Robbins, Jr. speaking at that July 29 meeting:

“Madam President, I motion that we vote to adopt the Smart Start plan as a contingency for the 2020-2021 school year and that the school year begin under the minimal risk scenario,” he said.

Basically what that meant was that instruction would be 100% in-person — no Zoom, no distance learning. But classrooms could be scaled back if COVID-19 cases spiked.

That’s been the plan. And it was reaffirmed by four school board members who won new terms in October’s local elections: if Ketchikan’s emergency operations center, or EOC, said students should be sent home, they’d be sent home.

Here’s Kim Hodne, currently the school board president, speaking at a KRBD forum in September.

“Well, it would be ignorant to ignore a suggestion from our local emergency operations center if they’re giving us a recommendation and they’re basing it – which I know that they would – on what is happening in Ketchikan,” he said at the time. All six candidates pledged to follow the EOC’s recommendations.

But when the board met Thursday, Hodne said he wasn’t convinced that schools should remain half-empty.

He argued that existing precautions were enough to slow the spread even with full classrooms.

“We have many protocols in place, distancing and masking, and all of that. And if all those protocols are in place, and it works, then 50-50 really is no different than 100%,” Hodne said Thursday.

Board member Diane Gubatayao said she agreed.

But cases have been climbing, including within the school district: three people at Schoenbar Middle School have tested positive in recent days, as have another three at Ketchikan High School, the acting superintendent told KRBD late Thursday.

That led the board majority to say they should play it safe. Secondary school would remain at half capacity.

Board member Paul Robbins Jr. was among the majority who argued for sticking with the district’s established plan.

“You know, we put a ton of work months and months and months of work into this Smart Start plan, which factored in the testimony of countless parents, the testimony of countless teachers, and the testimony of countless experts,” Robbins said Thursday.

The board voted 5-2 to keep Schoenbar Middle School, Ketchikan High School and Revilla Junior-Senior High School at reduced capacity through Feb. 26. Gubatayao and Hodne were opposed.

Speaking after the meeting, School board President Kim Hodne says the school district has broad autonomy to make its own public health decisions.

“We are not tied directly to the EOC’s risk levels, and we all know that. But we have followed them to this point. And I believe now, six months later, after having said that, with more information, changing of circumstances, it was, in my opinion, now it’s the right way to go,” Hodne said.

The school board is slated to reconsider whether to bring students back to classrooms at noon Thursday, Feb. 25. It’ll be broadcast on cable channels and streamed on the borough’s website.

The post Secondary schools in Ketchikan to remain half-full for at least another week appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan’s school district will hold a town hall meeting to discuss its evolving plan to resume school in the fall. That’s after intense criticism from community members at the board’s last several meetings.

The school board approved the July 27 public forum on its Smart Start plan in the Ketchikan High School auditorium.

Superintendent Beth Lougee called in to the meeting. She said district staff had met with Ketchikan’s emergency operations center and state health officials to form a committee that would determine the community’s COVID-19 risk level — and, by extension, the pandemic precautions schools would employ.

In the most recent public draft of the plan, any new cases in Ketchikan would move the community from a “low” risk level to a “medium” risk level for a minimum of two weeks. That would cut the amount of time students spend in classrooms in half — from two days a week to one. The approach followed from state guidance.

Lougee said the new approach gives the district flexibility.

“A prime example would be if the cases continue to be from one of the fishing industry workers. And if that case is secluded and we have the go-ahead, we would not change from one level to another. It would be based on what is happening in the community,” Lougee said.

That follows new state guidance that encourages school districts to examine trends in coronavirus case numbers over time.

A time hasn’t been set for the meeting but masks will be required for attendees. A special school board meeting to ratify the plan will likely follow in the days following the town hall meeting.

In other business, Ketchikan’s school board has approved two new policies clarifying professional boundaries between district staff and students as well as facilities maintenance. The two new policies were drafted by the Association of Alaska School Boards, which offers model legislation to districts across the state.

The board also approved a two-year contract with the district’s administrative assistants. The new contract gives Ketchikan’s school receptionists and secretaries a pay raise of less than 2%.

And, finally, the board approved a contract with Schmolck Mechanical Contractors to replace a broken boiler at Ketchikan High School. Funding for the roughly $240,000 contract was approved by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly earlier this year.

The post Ketchikan school district to hold July 27 town hall on back-to-school plan appeared first on KRBD.