The last time Lilian was in school was March 13th. A Friday the 13th, no less. Seems appropriate. Originally the plan was to spend the next two weeks doing "remote distance learning" at home, followed by the regularly scheduled week of spring break as we tried as a state to "flatten the curve" and "slow the spread." Towards the end of those three weeks, we were informed that due to continually rising virus numbers, schools would continue to stay online through the month of April. And then April turned into all of May with summer break arriving without ever having gone back into the classrooms. About a week before school ended, Lilian was assigned a time to come into the school to pick up her yearbook and clean out her locker. Strict protocol ensued. Temperatures taken, hand sanitizer dispensed. A specific pattern to walk through the school so there wouldn't be overlap between the students. I wasn't allowed to come in with her. After taking a quick picture under the balloon arch, I was instructed to drive around to the bus drop-off as Lilian would be coming out that door when we she was finished.
It was a strange spring. Do you know how difficult it is to do theatre, orchestra and social dance classes online? I was incredibly impressed with the creative and out-of-the-box ways in which Lilian's teachers came up with lesson plans, homework assignments and ways to keep these kids engaged in a remote situation...especially classes that are usually participation type curriculum.
Not only was Lilian doing school virtually, all the colleges had moved online as well. Rebekah and Tanner were the first to arrive back home. As a 4th grade teacher at Lewiston Elementary in Cache Valley, Rebekah was also teaching remotely, which meant she could do so from anywhere. She and Tanner spent about two weeks here, Tanner taking over the TV room down the hall where he set up his computer and worked daily on his final semester of USU classes, and Rebekah usually sitting in the living room or kitchen, contacting each one of her elementary students daily by video chat...checking in, helping them with questions, teaching them math concepts, encouraging them, letting them know she cared. I've always thought teachers were unsung heroes, but after this? I hope no one ever takes teachers for granted again.
Though their classes at UVU and BYU had moved online, Julianne and Jordan continued to live in their Provo apartments due to work; Julianne teaching at the Missionary Training Center and Jordan transcribing phone conversations at Caption Calls. But after a few weeks the church moved missionaries to a Home MTC version of training and Jordan was given the option to work remotely as well, so both of them moved back to Kaysville and took over a couple empty classrooms at Guru Labs when covering their shifts.
As with the others, Brandon's classes were also remote, but other than a visit home for spring break, he decided to spend his quarantine in Cedar City with an "isolation buddy"...his girlfriend Abbie. She also decided to stay in Cedar City rather than move back to her hometown of Henderson, Nevada. They spent the majority of their days cooking and eating meals together, doing schoolwork, and keeping each other company. Occasionally they'd come up to visit us in Kaysville, or join Abbie's family at their cabin in Brian Head. But with Abbie going on a mission at the end of July and knowing their time together was limited, neither of them wanted to move home, putting them 6.5 hours apart. In fact, Brandon decided to stay in Cedar City and sign up for summer semester classes so that he could drive down to Henderson or up to Brian Head more easily on weekends leading up to her mission departure.
Bryan's work schedule didn't change much. Shortly after the new year, he started a long term consulting contract with a company in Connecticut. Because this was already online, he was able to continue his work with no obvious changes when the Coronavirus hit. Guru Labs was already doing much of their work remotely, so Bryan was able to find plenty for his employees to do despite not being able send them off as road warriors teaching on-site classes. And because most of them preferred to work from home and Bryan has his own office, it wasn't a big deal for him to continue to go into Guru Labs each day like normal to do his consulting. Probably easier for him to find quiet and focus there than at home with so many doing school work in various rooms of the house.
There have been all sorts of plans for how to start school safely in the fall. At this point most universities are doing some sort of hybrid situation with campus open...some classes in person, some on-line depending on the type of class and teacher. The public school districts are debating different ideas and get to decide independently how they want to proceed, no state-wide decision. I've filled out a few surveys as our district has tried to gauge parent's thoughts and opinions as to how to handle going back to school. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out...whether we go full time, remote or some hybrid version between the two. We've learned a lot from this past spring as to what works and what doesn't and hopefully we'll be able to find a way to educate our kids as safely as possible. What a crazy school year.
