By LAURA HAMMACK, guest columnist
The week of May 4-8 is National Teacher Appreciation Week. It’s always difficult to put into words how much we appreciate our educators in Brown County Schools. This year, because of the closure of the physical space of school, their talents have been catapulted to an appreciation level that is nothing short of heroic.
In March, when schools were ordered to close, districts across the state of Indiana were required to develop and submit a Continuous Learning Plan to the Indiana Department of Education. The district worked closely with our educators’ association to develop a plan that was responsive to the unique infrastructure of Brown County. Our teachers evidenced commitment to solutions that worked, but were far from easy to develop.
Because of our unique infrastructure, our educators are required to deploy continuous learning opportunities for all students via a hybrid learning model. The model provides two options for families that are built on a “tech” or “low-tech” foundation. The “tech” option is for students who have internet access in the home or are taking advantage of several innovative internet solutions for families.
All students in our district are issued a Chromebook device; however, it is estimated that only about 40 percent of families have high-speed internet connectivity in their home. Additionally, reliable transportation is a problem for many of our families. While our district enrollment is relatively small, we are a countywide school district that is large geographically. For many families, transportation to a location with internet service has proven difficult to negotiate.
As a result, the “low-tech” option includes paper packets that are printed including both instruction and assignments. These packets are delivered during meal distribution at the schools and, for families with no transportation, the packets are mailed home to ensure that every student has access to educational services. As you can imagine, developing both online instruction via the electronic learning management system and creating print content is extremely challenging for our educators.
However, on a dime, our educators pivoted from preparing for instruction in their classrooms to providing varied modalities for instruction and student learning in a completely new environment. While finding silver linings in any of this is difficult, I have heard from countless families that they have never appreciated the difference that a teacher makes in the life of their child more than now.
Recently, I read that the varied emotions we are feeling now are most likely correlated with the grieving process. We are collectively grieving not only for the loss of big events and occasions that we should be celebrating together, we are also grieving the loss of normalcy. A “new normal” is often referenced, and because we don’t really know what that will look like, it’s likely that anxiety settles in. To combat all of that, we focus on what we know.
Right now, I know that because of our teachers, anything is possible. We absolutely can’t wait to getting back to the privilege of educating the children of Brown County within the walls of our schools. Until that time, we are grateful for parents and caregivers as partners in this work as our educators find new ways to make connections with families that we might never have realized before.
Teacher Appreciation Week certainly feels different in 2020, and “thank you” just doesn’t feel enough. Nonetheless, we stop this week to appreciate all that has been done and will continue to be realized for the children of our community.
In a time when hope can be very hard to find, simply look to a Brown County Schools teacher. They are hope dealers!
Thank you, Brown County teachers!
Laura Hammack is superintendent of Brown County schools. She can be reached at 812-988-6606 or [email protected].
