Student Evan Haines smiles as he hands Edison Elementary Kitchen Staff Member Christa Freeborn flowers while his brother Ian and mother Jillian look on last March in Centralia.
Local school districts say they are saddened to not be welcoming students back to school this month after Governor Jay Inslee on Monday extended school closures through the end of the school year, but understand that the health and safety of students and staff comes first.
“As much as we want to return to school, we do not want to in any way jeopardize the health or safety of our students or staff,” said Mossyrock Superintendent Lisa Grant, who will start as Centralia School District Superintendent on July 1. “We will continue to work collaboratively with the state, ESDs, surrounding districts, and our staff and community to provide meals, childcare and meaningful learning for all of our students.”
In March, Inslee ordered that all schools close through April 24 and on April 6, that order was extended through the end of the 2019-2020 school year. The schools will still be required to provide breakfast and lunch for all students and continue with some sort of distance learning.
“We do miss our students immensely and feel deeply for our senior class. We will work diligently with our seniors and their families to ensure they graduate and we provide meaningful activities to recognize them and their work,” said Grant.
Grant said that she knows that high school seniors will be missing out on a lot of the fun activities that come with senior year, including prom and graduation, but that the district will do what they can to make their senior year meaningful.
“We know we cannot provide all of the traditions and ‘rights of passage’ they have earned and worked so hard for, but we will do everything within our means and power to create a meaningful experience. While we cannot provide some of the same traditional experiences, we will look for opportunities to honor and recognize their work and accomplishments. They deserve it,” said Grant.
Interim Centralia School District Superintendent Kristy Vetter also commented on the extended school closure.
“It’s very surreal and we miss our kids, we miss our staff and we first and foremost want to keep them safe. … We are happy to be keeping them safe but we miss them a lot,” said Vetter.
Vetter said that they are working on getting all teachers trained in Google Classrooms so they will be able to track their student’s progress and assign lessons.
“We are feeling sad for our seniors because they are missing a lot of the traditional things seniors look forward to and we are looking for ways to celebrate and honor our senior class as well as make sure they have all of their requirements met in order to graduate on time,” said Vetter.
Debby Gregory, human resources and communications officer at Chehalis School District, said that teachers have reached out to students since the extended closure announcement and will be providing more learning materials to last the students through the rest of the school year.
“We are mostly concerned for kids and want to do whatever we can for them, we just don’t know what that looks like yet and some of the details still need to be worked out. Of course, we are all about our kids and we want to do as much as we possibly can,” said Gregory.
Gregory said that paper packets of learning materials have been handed out with lunch and there are learning materials online as well. The district has Chromebooks available for students that do not have a way to access the internet at home.
“We are going to continue to embrace continuous learning and our teachers are working closely with students and families,” said Gregory.
The Centralia School District is continuing with distance learning and posted on their Facebook page, “Schools may be closed for the rest of the year, but learning is NOT canceled!”
More information on learning resources can be found at www.CentraliaSchools.org/resources.
“We’ve been looking at ways to improve (distance learning) and now there are new guidelines from OSPI that we are taking into account,” said Centralia School District Communications & Public Relations Coordinator Ed Petersen.
The Boys & Girls Club of Chehalis will continue to provide childcare for first responders and healthcare workers.
