St. Joseph’s School in Chehalis Adapts to Distance Learning

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It’s not business as usual for St. Joseph’s School in Chehalis. Rather, it’s anything but. Thanks to some well-timed planning and determination from teachers, though, the transition into a new era of learning was more smooth than bumpy. 

It was Principal Carissa Talley’s idea to have a plan in place before the state issued any direction. She wasn’t sure if distance learning measures would need to be implemented at first, but with some guidance from The Office for Catholic Schools in Seattle, she decided her school should get a head start just in case. 

Ultimately, the plan had to be utilized. 

“We found out (schools were closing) and all the staff and everyone went to work, made plans and did everything they could to get their students as prepared as possible for two weeks of work, is what we anticipated,” Talley said. “We told our students this wasn’t a break from school, it was just a different method of school. We’re still taking attendance, we’re still holding them accountable for work to be done.”

St. Joseph’s School is a private kindergarten through eighth-grade Catholic school in Chehalis. 

Despite the initial time frame of two weeks, the plan is scalable to continue through the end of the school year. It took the weekend after Gov. Jay Inslee announced on March 13 all schools would be closing effective March 17 for teachers to prepare. By Monday, the plan was implemented. 

Students were given packets with schoolwork to take home and information on how to utilize the new internet-based services, iPads were available for checkout and the online platforms were up and running. Communication then became paramount as the wheels went up on the new distance learning project. 

The approach has varied for each teacher. Tyleen Moyer estimates she puts out between six and seven lessons per day for her kindergarten class and even sent up a Zoom video chat with her students. She called the results of the latter “interesting.” Danielle Imboden bounces between different methods for her middle school social studies classes and religion classes for second through eighth-graders.

“In the very beginning, I was trying to replicate classrooms but that’s difficult since we didn’t have any programs or platforms in place and we had to quickly pull it together,” Imboden said. “I use YouTube live stream videos, Google Classroom and some Zoom meetings.” 

Madeline Scalici is an eighth-grader at St. Joseph’s. Through her experience so far, she says the expectation from students is fairly consistent. 

“Most teachers, they’ll assign something and say this is due this date, but not necessarily everything is due at the end of the week,” Scalici said. “Most teachers are pretty lenient on it because everyone is still adjusting.”

She added that some teachers and daily assignments via email, while others ask that students submit an assignment by taking a picture of the completed worksheet and emailing it to them. 

Moyer said she’ll issue grades based on participation if her kindergarten students complete their assignments. She’s also encouraging families to help their children with their schoolwork. 

“I want them to get help at home,” Moyer said. “I don’t want them to just be left to fend for themselves.”

Talley said the students have adapted well to the new system, despite some of the early challenges remote learning has introduced. As the only Catholic school in Lewis County, students come from all over. 



“Of course, we have some hiccups, connectivity for everyone is not the same,” Talley said. “Connectivity issues are there a little bit, but we’ve been able to work through them and we’re trying to provide many different avenues of communication.”

Teachers have even reached out via phone to check in on students and their families, to make sure they’re okay and adapting in uncertain times. 

According to Talley, the St. Joseph staff has stressed clear and transparent communication while students have been at home. She said she’s had families, as well as teachers, voice concerns about internet accessibility and they’re trying to all work through the issues together. 

“We want our students to succeed, so we’re going to do whatever we can,” Talley said. “We are going to get materials to them. If that’s paper and pencil materials, parents can either pick up or we can deliver to them if they were to need it. We’ve done that, I’ve had a couple teachers make deliveries.

“If we know that’s (access to materials) the problem, we want to be flexible and help students however we can.” 

The willingness to help each other and stand together isn’t new to the staff and families affiliated with St. Joseph’s. For Moyer, her students and the community are the two aspects of her normal, day-to-day job she misses the most. 

She summed up the impact the closures have had.

“It’s different,” Moyer said. “It’s been difficult. It’s been probably more work than I would be doing in the classroom and I miss the kids.” 

The closures, Scalici said, have also led to social hardships for St. Joseph’s students. 

“It’s had a very negative impact,” Scalici said. “It’s really hard being away from these people that you see for seven hours, everyday. It’s hard being away from them, because you build really strong bonds with these people and they help get you through the day. Some people, we can’t talk to them, because they don’t have phones or ways you can contact them. 

Those students, though, will be able to reconvene at some point. For the time being, Imboden is encouraging the St. Joseph’s community to band together from a distance. 

“Anything hard to go through, whether it’s a death in the family or traumatic experience of any kind, I think that pulls people together,” Imboden said. “It’s a shared experience and having gone through it together, it’s bonding. I think that we’re like a family and sometimes families bicker over things that don’t matter, I think that things like this make the things that have been irrelevant or nonsense fall away. Your core things remain.”

The COVID-19 pandemic likely won’t be in the rearview mirror in time for the St. Joseph’s annual eighth-grade graduation to go on as scheduled in June. Still, Talley has told the eighth graders that some way, somehow, they’ll have a graduation when it’s safe to do so. 

“I don’t know when and I don’t know what it will look like but it’s important for us to celebrate (them) and (their) accomplishments and for us to get together as a community to celebrate them,” Talley said. “Not only for the students, but for their families — their parents, grandparents, the people who have supported them.”