Younger Ocean City students return to class
Kindergarten to fifth grade starts full-time in-person learning
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Ocean City’s welcome back for in-person learning didn’t go exactly to plan last week because of bad weather and flooding Monday and Tuesday on the island, but on Wednesday, Feb. 3, excited children walked into the Ocean City Primary and Intermediate schools.
Their excitement was matched by a handful of happy school board members greeting them along with teachers and administrators eager to see student faces in person five days a week.
The Ocean City School District began planning its February return to full-time in-person education in December, asking everyone in the community to continue safe practices in and out of school to lower the risk of spreading the COVID-19 virus. That culminated Wednesday as buses and parents began dropping off fourth and fifth grade students around 7:30 a.m. at the Intermediate School and kindergarten through third graders at the Primary School about an hour later.
“I think it is very exciting for us and it has been a long road to get here,” school board President Joseph Clark said Wednesday morning outside the Primary School. “We’re really excited so we hope the families and the kids are as excited as we are.”
“This is such a great day for the families and the kids. We’re thankful to everybody. Safety does come first, but we’re thankful to the staff and the administration,” board member Jaqueline McAlister added.
As youngsters walked in with their face masks, some plain, others decorated, and adorned backpacks, McAlister said, “Think back to your first days of school. It’s nothing but exciting. Kids running around and saying ‘hi’ and ‘good morning.’ It’s really the best thing we can do for them, to get them back where they belong.”
“It’s like the first day of summertime when the kids are going on the rides,” said fellow school board member Cecelia Gallelli-Keyes. (“It’s like Christmas morning,” McAlister interjected.)
“It’s joyous to see this,” Gallelli-Keyes said. “We’re all coming together as a community, we’re all staying healthy and staying happy, and we’re going to start some good educational work. Let’s see what happens.”
Asked how she felt about the morning, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kathleen Taylor’s emotions couldn’t be hidden by the face mask she was wearing. “It’s the most wonderful feeling, the most wonderful day,” she said, clapping her hands and raising her arms in triumph as if one of the school’s sports teams had just won.
“It’s been 11 months,” Taylor said about how long it has been since students were learning in schools full-time. In mid-March of 2020, Gov. Phil Murphy ordered all schools to go to remote learning to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Students did not return at all to classes last year and the first time any students were all together was at the high school graduation, when the class of 2020 was spread out on the football field at Carey Stadium and parents had to watch from outside the fences.
This fall the school year began with a hybrid learning schedule, with the schools teaching half of the students at a time in-person two days a week and remote learning taking place the other three days a week.
Last week marked the first time since March any of the students had returned to school full-time.
“I’m just so happy to see them, to see their smiling faces, to see how enthusiastic and excited they are to be with their teachers and all their classmates,” Taylor said. “What a great day for Ocean City.”
Dr. Patrick Kane, a medical doctor and vice president of the board of education, walked his three children – Grace, 9, a third-grader, Tierney, 8, a second-grader, and Liam, 6, a kindergart student – to the front of the Primary School. At one point the two girls ran ahead of him down the sidewalk, eager to get to school.
“They’re super excited, beyond excited, to get back to school,” Kane said. “It’s just, especially at this age, a natural part of their development. I think we’re going on a year now (with remote learning). I think it’s just everybody is excited that we’re able to do this.”
Kane said to ensure the in-person education continues, families will have to continue to practice safety in and out of school.
“I think the keys are what we’ve been trying to emphasize since the start of all this, which is following the recommendations that are out there, continuing the social distance, continuing to wear masks, continuing to install every safety measure that we can and really just continuing to keep a close eye on changes in the disease and community prevalence and things along those lines,” he said. “Not just changing our behavior for in school, but for out of school, to remember to stay safe so we can keep the disease burden in our community less, which would allow us to keep schools open.”
Kane said it has taken work from all levels in the district to make the return happen.
“I want to emphasize the effort that’s been put forward by the administrators from Dr. Taylor on down to the principals, to all the teachers, to the cafeteria workers to the school bus drivers to the crossing guards to the janitors. It’s been such a team effort and I think it’s such a wonderful example of the community coming together for our children.
Clark said the school board and administration “will constantly reassess every day, every week, and we may have to make other changes in either direction. We’re hoping it goes in this positive direction.”
“I think as a society the question is, ‘Where do you value education?’ And so, my mind, if Home Depot is open and restaurants are open, we should be doing everything we can as long as it’s safe to get the schools back open,” Kane said. As the children hurried into the school, he added, “As you can see, it’s a natural thing for kids and the best thing for kids.”
Upper grades
At the Intermediate School, starting this week grades six to eight are adding concurrent teaching and one more day of in-person instruction. Concurrent teaching, the district explained in a letter, is live-streaming lessons from the classroom, something that started at the high school. The district began the full-time in-person learning at these grade levels because of the room available to allow for safe social distancing in the schools.
