‘Coming back with the faucet wide open.’ COVID-19 still challenging Lexington teachers

Sarah Blades, a teacher at Lexington Traditional Magnet Middle School, thinks teachers returning to the classroom this week will have to work at getting kids back into the groove of being social.

“Everybody’s coming back this year and I think one of the challenges is going to be getting everybody back into the norms, the schedule, being back into the building,” said Blades.

The coronavirus pandemic -- how it affected students through months of in-person shutdowns and how a surge in cases is looming over this week’s start of classes -- is top of mind for Blades and other Fayette County educators as the 2021- 2022 school year begins.

The school district is already dealing with positive cases. On Sunday, Morton Middle School principal Twanjua Jones in an email told families that an individual who was at the school for sixth grade practice day last Tuesday has tested positive for COVID-19.

“Having to convince kids that we’re still in a pandemic,” will be an issue, Blades said. When classes ended in May, things were getting better. Vaccinations were up, cases were down. But in the last few weeks, COVID-19 cases have risen and the Delta variant is highly contagious.

Although high school students in Fayette County have not had to wear a mask at times, they will when school starts Wednesday.

Morton Middle School teacher Mark Russell, who has taught for 27 years, said the biggest challenge Fayette County Public Schools teachers face is keeping kids safe and healthy at school this year.

“I think all of us have mask fatigue,” said Jody Cabble, a 22-year teacher at Henry Clay High School.

“Not all students want to wear masks,” said Russell. “And some parents oppose the practice. I’d argue most teachers want to resume in-class instruction because most of us are vaccinated and therefore feel protected. Likewise, we know that virtual education was not a suitable alternative last year.”

“That being said, we are extremely worried about delivering quality instruction and closing learning gaps in the face of possible school closures due to quarantine,” he said.

Henry Clay High teacher Ryan Ray hopes kids will feel more normal when school starts. Last school year, some students who returned in-person weren’t interacting.

“When we were back for the first time (in March 2021) a lot of kids had a hard time feeling comfortable enough to talk like they used to,” said Ray, a teacher for eighteen years. “They were a lot more quiet than I expected them to be.”

Donnie Piercey, a teacher at Stonewall Elementary and 2021 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, said many of the “looming questions and challenges that schools are facing would be solved if everyone who’s eligible would go out and get vaccinated against COVID-19.”

“Mask mandates, quarantine procedures, and social distancing in schools would no longer be a concern. Getting the vaccine is still the quickest way to bring an end to the pandemic in Kentucky,” he said.

Blades, who has taught for about ten years, said teachers will have to work to make sure students are where they need to be academically, but she doesn’t anticipate a huge catch up period. She thinks educators did a good job throughout the pandemic, before and after they returned to in-person learning.

Christopher McCurry, a Lafayette High School teacher who was the 2021 Kentucky High School Teacher of the Year, said because of the pandemic, remote learning, and then hybrid learning last year, teachers have more skill and resources to reach every student.

“I would say the challenge, then, is to make sure the community knows that we are doing just that—working hard to teach students at an exceptional level even in extraordinary circumstances. Every teacher that I know is excited to see their students on Wednesday and start the school year together,” he said.

Cabble said Fayette County Schools officials have done a strong job communicating with teachers since the pandemic and the spring 2021 return to class.

“They have been clear on their expectations. They have been understanding of the challenges we face and they have been patient. They have done everything they can do to make this transition as easy as possible,” she said.

Still Cabble said, it will be a struggle for kids to learn in the traditional sense again.

“We’re going to be a little bit tired in the beginning. We’ve had a different pace. We’re coming back with the faucet wide open,” she said.

Cabble said some students, when given an assignment in summer school classrooms, asked “Can’t I just work on this at home online?”

“They’ve become remote learners,” Cabble said.

Cabble said her principal Paul Little told teachers that everybody was going through the pandemic storm, but not everybody was in the same boat.

Some kids ‘boats’ were fully equipped and they had everything they needed when they learned from home. Others were not. The numbers of kids struggling in May seemed huge to Cabble , but she said that improved after the district’s ambitious summer learning program, Summer Ignite.

“We recovered so much,” she said. “I’m as excited as I’ve ever been to go back into the classroom.”

This story was originally published August 9, 2021 at 11:55 AM.