‘Doing the best we can for our kids’: How the first day of school went in Beaufort Co.

Thousands of Beaufort County students headed back to school Tuesday in a return that was anything but traditional amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Rather than lining up behind desks in brick-and-mortar classrooms, students and some teachers welcomed each other and the start of the new academic year via the virtual world.

Parents scrambled to get their kids ready, teachers adjusted their approaches to learning, and principals did what they could to make it all come off as smoothly as distance learning would allow.

Beaufort County School District spokeswoman Candace Bruder said Tuesday that employees “worked diligently to resolve issues if and when they came up.”

“Even during a normal school year, there are hundreds of moving parts involved,” she said in a statement. “Schools determine what parts are not working and address them. Opening in a virtual capacity for the first time is a unique experience for school districts across the nation and we are no exception. We are looking forward to resuming face-to-face instruction sooner rather than later.”

Day 1 left some parents optimistic, at least for now.

In Hilton Head Plantation, the Simons family set up separate rooms for the first day of school.

Brooke, 16, a senior at Hilton Head High School, took over the dining room and set up her school-provided laptop next to her personal MacBook and the desktop monitor she uses for her photography business.

Her brother Garrett, a 14-year-old freshman, set up in his bedroom.

Their schedule starts at 8:45 a.m. with one-hour blocks followed by a 30-minute period for completing work or asking questions of their teachers. Brooke had Spanish first thing in the morning, then her theory of knowledge class, followed by an extended essay class and English class in the afternoon. She’s in the International Baccalaureate program at Hilton Head High.

The big first day would be punctuated by a 30-minute lunch in the kitchen.

“I think it’s worked well,” Brooke said. “For the first hour at least.”

“I’m optimistic,” said mom Elise Simons. “I’m grateful (the school district) is looking at the big picture. … To open and then close in two weeks would be worse for parents who have to plan.”

Simons said she is lucky to have high school-age students who are independent. She said she feels for parents who have to facilitate school rather than watch from her home office.

At Coosa Elementary School on Lady’s Island, second-year principal Melissa Pender said most teachers are coming into the building despite being able to teach from home.

Pender got to work at 5:45 a.m. instead of her usual 6:15 a.m.

She said this year’s kickoff was weird with no students in the school, and she missed seeing their excitement and hearing how their summers went.

“I’m going to miss the hugs and high-fives the most because we can’t do that right now. Now, we’re sanitizing,” she said pointing to one of the many new hand sanitizer stations set up throughout the hallways.

In preparation for the first day, teachers last week had virtual one-on-one meetings with students and their parents. They tried to answer any questions, as well as help with technology.

“We feel very prepared,” Pender said.

But she’s also realistic.

“There’s going to be hiccups today,” she said. “but at least we have a system in place to fix it.”

Teacher April Bryant has been in the classroom for seven years. This is her second year teaching 5th grade at Coosa.

Her classroom is awash in bright colors, especially pinks and greens. Doilies and string lights hang from the ceiling.

“Even though I’m a virtual teacher, I can’t be inside one that’s not decorated.”

The school blocks off 8 a.m. until 8:30 a.m. for technology troubleshooting. There’s a tech person to help with any issues that happen during teaching time so the teachers can focus on lessons.

Instruction begins at 8:30.

“The students can learn so quickly. Technology is such second nature to a lot of these students, so I feel like we can offer the same quality, the same rigor as we would traditional learning,” Bryant said.

At Pritchardville Elementary School, first-grade teacher Mary Powell said she received more than 35 technology questions from parents via Google Form before the first day of school.

Some were concerned about log-ins for new virtual classrooms from K12 Learning Solutions, which students and teachers alike received Tuesday morning, but many were more mundane.

“We saw folks who didn’t understand how to turn on an iPad,” principal Brenda Blue said.

The day had other challenges for parents.

Tuesday wasn’t the first day of school for the three children in the Lossada family of Hilton Head Island, though it was the first day with internet issues.

Are networks overloaded with so many children logging in to online school this morning? their father, Fernando Lossada, wondered.

Fifth-grader Isabel, fourth-grader Piper and first-grader Renzo started school three weeks ago in an office-space turned classroom their parents have named the HHI Learning Club. The children’s academic work is through K12 South Carolina Virtual Charter School, and the family hired a learning coach to help manage the children’s school days.

Lossada said he loved Hilton Head Island IB Elementary School and the Spanish-immersion program his kids previously attended, but the uncertainty of the district’s plans made the family want to try something different.

“The reality is not all the parents have the resources for this,” he said. “We are in our little corner, doing the best we can for our kids.”

Each child has a separate nook with a desk and shelves. Fernando and his wife, Heather, let them put whatever they wanted on the walls to express their personality. The classroom also has a common area with comfortable seats for reading and another area for arts and crafts. There are bright colors everywhere.

“Education is the key here,” Fernando said. “I’m going to do everything I can for these kids not to remember 2020 as a bad year.”

Other students logged into Zoom from child-care centers early Tuesday.

About 70 kids attended their first day of classes at the Boys & Girls Club of Hilton Head Island, which offered a program to monitor students while they work on computers or tablets.

Dozens of cars lined up at 8 a.m. as working parents dropped off their kids. Staffers walked out, clipping a pulse oximeter to students’ fingers and scanning their foreheads with a hand-held thermometer.

Jeremy McDonnell, a local notary, was bringing two of his kids, 8-year-old JT and 6-year-old Aby, to the Boys & Girls Club program. His wife works at TidePointe, a senior living community on the island, so there was no way they could stay home and watch the children, he said.

By 9 a.m., K-8 students at the club were logging into Zoom, and working through myriad first-day technology issues.

“Is this blurry, or is this just me?” asked one fifth grader, pointing to his screen.

Another student couldn’t find her Google Classroom login information. Several forgot their headphones.

Some K-3 students, meanwhile, were having trouble opening Zoom on district-issued tablets.

Club staffers raced around, helping kids navigate their schedules or explaining that they had to bring their laptop’s charger every day.

“It’s exactly what we expected,” said Kim Likins, the club’s executive director. “All in all, the kids are doing great.”

Only a few got frustrated or upset, she said. Most logged into class relatively easily.

At Hilton Head Island Middle School, about 10 students were crowded into the lobby — but many had parents with them, and all wore masks. Three women manned a Plexiglassed receptionist’s desk, handing out laptops and troubleshooting technology issues.

Principal Pat Freda stood in the middle of it all with a glittery “HHIMS Stingrays” mask, helping a sixth grader and his mother log into a district-provided laptop for the first time.

She alternated between English and Spanish as she gave the student instructions for his Google Classroom account and told him she’d take down his name to mark him as “present” for the day even if he missed his classes.

Many of the students were non-English speakers or sixth graders “who probably need a little tender love and care,” Freda said. Hilton Head Middle’s population is about 50% Hispanic, and about 20% of those enrolled in the school receive English as a second language instruction or interventions.

At Battery Creek High School in Burton, Principal Chad Cox’s phone buzzed as he sat at the head of a conference table, seven empty chairs surrounding him. He wore a navy blue T-shirt with “CREEK” on the front of it, just like every other staff member in the building.

He turned his office into a command center of sorts. On his laptop, a live Zoom stream shows an instructional coach helping a student navigate online to the class they’re supposed to be in.

The Zoom steam is live the entire school day, giving parents and students direct access to someone inside Battery Creek that can help them in real time.

“I like to look at the positives,” Cox said. “You can’t control a lot of things, so you have to make the best of it. One of those might be that this is the most interactive we’ve ever been with parents.”

Echoes filled the otherwise empty hallways painted the school’s blue and gold. Some teachers hopped around from classroom to classroom to chat during their class periods. Administrators helped students pick up their tablets to do virtual learning from home, and a group of health officials walked through the school taking notes and giving feedback on how Battery Creek can make returning to school in-person as safe as possible whenever that happens.

Aimee Whitesell, who teaches biology, said the first half of the day had gone well.

“The kids are super active and ready to go,” she said.

Whitesell has been brainstorming ways for her students to still do experiments at home and make science enjoyable, such as giving students a large list of options for projects they can complete with everyday household items, such as using the scientific method to see which paper towel brand is most absorbent.

“Right now, it’s a matter of using what you’ve got at home,” she said.

Cox said he feels like he and the staff are prepared for virtual learning, and that students are, too.

“It’s a lot of moving parts,” Cox said.

The Beaufort County School District didn’t have attendance numbers for the first day of school available Tuesday.

Instead of “traditional daily methods,” schools will base attendance on students’ participation “in assigned learning experiences” and whether they submitted assignments by their teachers’ deadlines, district spokeswoman Candace Bruder said.

Schools will record this form of attendance weekly.

Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette reporters Rachel Jones, Lana Ferguson, Katherine Kokal, Stephen Fastenau, Lisa Wilson and Sam Ogozalek contributed to this report.

This story was originally published September 8, 2020 at 3:49 PM.